Greetings from Cairo
After about a week in Cairo, my host, and by that point friend, Walid, asked me if the city matched my expectations. ‘It’s hard to say,’ I replied. ‘I didn’t really have a clear picture in my head before I arrived.’ Yes, I had skimmed through a travel book and looked a few things up, [&h
family curses
after clytemnestra’s husband returns from the ten-year war, she hacks him to death with an axe. she says a curse made her do it. her son kills her in revenge. all the while — birdsong. i. the first year // petrification we were happy until the summer i turned ten. i hadn’t lear
Greetings from Woking
Greetings from Woking! Whilst some students sunbathe in far-off lands and others spend eight weeks completing gruelling internships, I spend my nights under strobing lights, shoes sticky with beer, with shrieks, music and laughter ringing in my ears. It could almost be mistaken for Ibiza. Almost. &n
Greetings from Boston
Boston seems to stand alone amid the current political clusterfuck of America. Clusterfuck is not a word one should use lightly— not language befitting a postcard— and yet, it is the only term suitable for a nation taking a hacksaw to its own foundational pillars. I don’t mean that Bost
Greetings from a grown-up
It is summer, still. I can tell because it is warmer outside than it was last summer. I can tell because sudden hot rainfall is welcome: it makes people laugh and leaves behind an earthly dirt smell like it did in Khartoum, where I spent all my summers as a child. Now, with Khartoum desolate, [&hell
Smoking. Hot?
The slim tube of paper rests elegantly between my fingers—I can almost inhale a swirl of smoke emerging from it. ‘Are you going to eat that lollipop?’ my mother asks. I gingerly turn the sweet the right way round and suck on sugar instead of fictional nicotine (not that I am awa
Greetings from Cotonou, Benin
Editor’s Note: the author has used a number of French words throughout the text. These are denoted by an asterisk, which corresponds to an explanatory footnote at the bottom of the page. Like all language students, I began my second year at Oxford by attending an informational sessio
Ballad of a bad bisexual woman
Every time over the last few years that I’ve found myself smitten or stressed or exasperated with a man, it’s occurred to me that I have, in some ways, been doing my sexuality backwards. Traditionally, a woman at university might find in her time there what posh boys for most of history ha
Greetings from Tibet
At the time of writing, the Tibet Autonomous Region remains inaccessible to independent travelers who do not hold P.R.C. passports. Foreign tourists are required to apply for the Tibet Travel Permit in advance of their trips, during which they stay in groups separated from Chinese nationals.