Image: Cover image for Wasafiri 118
Wasafiri 118: Abolitions - Writing Against Abandonment
Our summer special issue, Wasafiri 118 — Abolitions: Writing Against Abandonment, guest-edited by Farhaana Arefin and Dr Abeera Khan, explores the work of those organising against the degradation of life under racial capitalism from India to Lebanon, Palestine to France. In this issue, writing is offered as a tool for liberation, with language as resistance to enforced isolation for incarcerated people, and translation as a tool for building solidarity across borders.
Editorial Writing Against Abandonment
Interviews Mwasi Collectif; Nejma Collective; Revolutionary Papers
Articles Rejecting Defeat and Approaching Liberation: Palestinian Prisoners' Hunger Strikes; Competing Choreographies of the Postcolonial Plantation
Art Respectable: Beyond a Wretched Working Class
Fiction Hilal Chouman trans. Caline Nasrallah; Pear Nuallak; Ayòdélé Olófintúadé
Poetry NM Danish trans. Haider Shahbaz; Sarah Lasoye; Nat Raha; Shripad Sinnakaar
Life Writing Maymana Arefin; Mahrang Baloch trans. Mahvish Ahmad; Jun Pang; Layan Kayed trans. Roba AlSalibi
Review Essay Everything for Everyone: Writing Toward Freedom
Reviews Chain Gang All Stars, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah; The Fraud, Zadie Smith; Rifqa, Mohammed El-Kurd; Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation, Sophie Lewis; Bad Diaspora Poems, Momtaza Mehri.
... and much more.
Contents
Editorial
Writing Against Abandonment
Farhaana Arefin and Dr Abeera Khan
Interviews
For Us, Abolition Is An Anti-Colonial, Anti-Fascist Position’: An Interview with Mwasi Collectif
Alexandra Wanjiku Kelbert
‘We Won’t Abandon You’: An Interview with The Nejma Collective
Latifa Akay
‘Periodicals Were The Beating Hearts Of Global Movements’: An Interview with Mahvish Ahmad, Koni Benson, And Hana Morgenstern Of Revolutionary Papers
Marral Shamshiri
Articles
Rejecting Defeat and Approaching Liberation: Palestinian Prisoners’ Hunger Strikes
Basil Farraj
Competing Choreographies Of The Postcolonial Plantation: Planter’s Pageantry Meets Sistren Collective’s Sweet Sugar Rage
Julia Michiko Hori
Art
Respectable: Beyond a Wretched Working Class
Mohammed Z Rahman
Fiction
Once Upon A Time, Tomorrow
Hilal Chouman Trans. Caline Nasrallah
Happy Birthday, You Are No Longer A Daughter
Pear Nuallak
Lákíríboto — ‘season One: Glass Half Empty (2005)’
Ayòdélé Olófintúadé
Poetry
Protest; احتجاج
NM Danish trans. Haider Shahbaz
Manifesto
Sarah Lasoye
invocation
Nat Raha
At The 90 Feet Road Junction
Shripad Sinnakaar
Life Writing
The Prison as a Text
Layan Kayed trans. Roba AlSalibi
On Fungal Dreams of Liberation
Maymana Arefin
Lumma! In Your Name
Mahrang Baloch trans. Mahvish Ahmad
Shelters of Innocence
Jun Pang
Review Essay
Everything for Everyone: Writing Toward Freedom
Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune 2052–2072 – M E O’Brien. Translated by Eman Abdelhadi
Hangman – Maya Binyam
Truth & Dare – So Mayer
Lola Olufemi
Reviews
Health Communism – Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant
Micha Frazer-Carroll
The Fraud – Zadie Smith
Yara Rodrigues-Fowler
Rifqa – Mohammed El-Kurd
I Will Not Fold These Maps – Mona Kareem. Translated by Sara Elkamel
Shivanee Ramlochan
Brother Alive – Zain Khalid
Chain-Gang All-Stars – Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
D Rudd-Mitchell
How Long Can the Moon Be Caged?: Voices of Indian Political Prisoners – Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia
Prison Writing and the Literary World: Imprisonment, Institutionality and Questions of Literary Practice – Michelle Kelly and Claire Westall, eds
Jigisha Bhattacharya
Rotten Evidence – Ahmed Naji. Translated by Katherine Halls
Black Foam – Haji Jabir. Translated by Sawad Hussain and Marcia Lynx Qualey
Elhum Shakerifar
Bad Diaspora Poems – Momtaza Mehri
Heritage Aesthetics – Anthony Anaxagorou
Rojbîn Arjen
Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation – Sophie Lewis
Sophia Siddiqui
