Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

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Sci-Fi

MER Article

Speculative Climate Futures in Arab Literature

There is a fixity to the boundaries of genre fiction in English, enforced within publishing as within scholarship, that is largely absent in Arabic. While Anglophone publishing is intensely concerned with comparative titles and where a novel fits into the landscape, contemporary Arabic publishing largely is not. As such, there

Marcia Lynx Qualey • 10 min read

Energy Politics and Africanfuturism—A Conversation with Nnedi Okorafor — Nnedi Okorafor. Courtesy the author’s website.The cover of the book ‘Noor’ by Nnedi Okorafor.

MER Article

Energy Politics and Africanfuturism—A Conversation with Nnedi Okorafor

Nnedi Okorafor is an award-winning writer of science fiction and fantasy for adults and youth. Her latest work is Akata Woman (Penguin, 2023), an Africanfuturist novel that follows her previous work, Noor (Penguin, 2022). Noor features the protagonist AO, whose experience of disability, bio-tech and trauma shapes her trajectory in

Karen Rignall, Nnedi Okorafor • 11 min read

Speculative Climate Futures in Arab Literature — Beirut by Barrack Zaila Rima, Ibrahim Nasrallah’s The Second War of the Dog and The Solar Grid by Ganzeer.Utopia by Ahmed Khaled Towfik.Iraq +100: Stories from a century after the invasion, edited by Hassan Blasim.Inside the Giant Fish by Rawand Issa.Poster for the film “Kenopsia” by Mohamed Omar.

Current Analysis

Speculative Climate Futures in Arab Literature

From beautiful dystopias to experimental graphic novels, how authors in the region are tackling climate change.

Marcia Lynx Qualey • 10 min read