Joan Mitchell: Painter of Light
In an age when a football commentator can – quite rightly – be fired for making racist remarks, I wonder why Brian Sewell is still allowed to publish art criticism. Sewell believes that ‘only men are capable of aesthetic greatness’, and argues that women can’t paint because they can’t drive . .…
A Small State in Hot Water
To conclude my travel research for my second novel, Astra, I visited Iceland for a week. Astra is set in Mesopotamia in a new nation called Is-Land, a small state formed in the aftermath of a global environmental and economic collapse (we all know it’s coming, don’t we?). In Icelandic, Iceland is called Ísland, but…
Seven Wonders of the West Bank
Note: for the benefit of readers hazy in the geopolitical department, a short history of the West Bank is included at the end of this post. I don’t think you have to visit a country in order to have a valid opinion about it, but as a writer-activist, and a vocal advocate of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement since…
Jerusalem: What Apartheid Looks Like
Jerusalem. The Holy City. Centre of three major world religions, and surely a place that should transcend political differences, remind us of our shared humanity, and humble all who enter its ancient walls? For while I am not a member of any of the patriarchal Abrahamic faiths, it seems to me that Christianity, Judaism and Islam share a reverence for…
Yaffa Rocks
First day in Israel-Palestine, and a stop in Tel Aviv en route to Jerusalem, Jenin and Ramallah. But what to do in a city you are boycotting? Protest, of course. Today I joined Arab and Jewish Israeli activists demonstrating in Yaffa – AKA Jaffa or Yafo, the old Arab town now subsumed by Tel Aviv – in support of the…
The Million Star Hotel
I spent my penultimate night in Anatolia at a homestay in the village of Yuvacali (Yu-va-JA-li), following a day tour to the ‘bee hive’ houses of Harran, near the Syrian border, and the ancient sites of Sogmatar and Gőbekli Tepe – the latter, dated from 9000 BC, being the world’s oldest known religious temple. Both experiences were courtesy of Nomad…
Between the Rivers
In our country a look a wave of the hand means the world In our country there are no terraces of paradise no rewards from ‘The North Gate’ Bejan Matur Wikipedia will give you all the background facts: 25 to 30 million Kurds inhabit the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates, a region known since antiquity as…
I Rest My Case
Seen from the window of a minibus, heading out of Diyarbakir on a day trip to the Neolithic site of Çayönü. As was this roundabout monument, which I must admit puts the twelve foot high gopher in Regina’s Wascana Park to shame. In fact, I think it even beats…
Land of Buttermilk and Daisies
So why Kurdistan? As readers of previous posts may have gathered, I am here location scouting for my second novel, Astra. Without giving too much of the plot away, the book is set a century from now, after global warming has rendered much of the planet unfit for human habitation and the survivors of the catastrophe are slowly trying to…