We've Got History: Wasafiri and Writing the UAE
In celebration of the launch of Wasafiri 122: The UAE Issue, join us for a roundtable discussion with three NYU Abu Dhabi alumni and issue contributors: poet and writer Aathma Nirmala Dious, researcher Noora Jabir, and writer and Wasafiri Deputy Editor Vamika Sinha. This conversation will be chaired by issue co-editors – and faculty at NYU Abu Dhabi – Deepak Unnikrishnan, author of Temporary People (Restless Books, 2017), and Laure Assaf, an anthropologist and specialist of Middle Eastern studies.
Together, these speakers will gently pick at the ways in which their varied practices intertwine with and are inspired by the UAE — as a site of meaning, residence, learning, and crucially, history. Whether this history is familial, fervent, or fraught, the panellists will discuss how they write through and into it using their particular methodologies and perspectives, as expressed through work that’s creative, editorial, and academic.
When: Wednesday, 16 July 5-7pm (5.30pm start)
Where: NYU London
Tickets: Free
Laure Assaf is an anthropologist and an Assistant Professor at NYU Abu Dhabi. Her research and teaching focus on youth, urbanity, migration, and social hierarchies in the contemporary United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the broader Gulf region.
Aathma Nirmala Dious is a Malayali writer from Abu Dhabi. Much of her work – fiction, poetry and nonfiction – deals with South Asian-Gulf migration narratives and personal history, with a focus on womanhood, family, and memory. Her debut novel Thoo! is forthcoming with Hachette India and she is currently completing her MA in Literary Studies at Leiden University. Previously she graduated from NYU Abu Dhabi with a BA in Literature and Creative Writing in 2021 and was a recipient of the Salama Bin Hamdan Emerging Artists Fellowship in 2023.
Noora Jabir is a postgraduate researcher at NYU Abu Dhabi with a degree in Arab Crossroad Studies. Her research largely focuses on the Indian Ocean world, exploring the construction, preservation, and expression of heritage in the region. She also helped create the MENASA (Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia) region’s first family business history database as a research assistant for the Family Business Histories Project.
Vamika Sinha is an Indian-born, Botswana-raised arts and culture writer based in London. She holds a BA from NYU Abu Dhabi and an MA in Comparative Literature from SOAS University of London, and is interested in entwinements of postcoloniality, cosmopolitanism, feminism, and migration. Vamika is one of the founding editors of Postscript Magazine. Aside from writing criticism for various publications, she is a Senior Editor at the South Asian Avant-Garde Anthology and Deputy Editor at Wasafiri.
Deepak Unnikrishnan is a writer from Abu Dhabi. His award-winning Temporary People, a work of fiction about Gulf narratives steeped in Malayalee and South Asian lingo, set the base for his latest project, ‘Pettee’, a dance piece co-written and co-directed with the writer Karthika Naïr, composer Sarathy Korwar, and other movement-makers. He is an Associate Arts Professor at NYU Abu Dhabi, and he has two more books in him, no more.
Our summer special issue, guest co-edited by Laure Assaf and Deepak Unnikrishnan, explores the United Arab Emirates’ literary and creative scene — away from monolithic representations of the region. Its contributors are makers – of books, arts, texts, and community – with ties to the United Arab Emirates and/or the Gulf. They are brought into conversation across generations and disciplines, reflecting on what this place is for them, and what it does to them. They talk about risk, memory-making, taxis, and televised dreams — pushing the lines, or treading them carefully.