Featured Content
Breathing Between Bubbles: A Leib-University in Exile
Yana Suchikova is the Vice-Rector for Research at a displaced Ukrainian university. In this piece of life writing from our latest Solidarities issue, she writes on the emotional and corporeal experiences of sustaining university teaching during war and occupation in Ukraine — with and without internet, in makeshift shelters, in simultaneous isolation and fragmented togetherness, while displaced and dispersed. Drawing on Boris Vian’s text L’Écume des jours and the 'foam' of their everydays – 'light, sparkling, but short-lived' – Suchikova considers the various 'bubbles' of locality, care, reprieve, freedom, and solidarity she and the students and members of their university create.
NonfictionExtractSolidarities
Taring Padi in Venice and in Solidarity: Art and Autonomous Cooperation
What changes when activist artists are hosted by other activists, rather than by a conventional art institution in the Global North? In this essay, Marco Baravalle approaches this question through solidarity, a term that recurs throughout the work of Taring Padi, an Indonesian underground art collective formed in 1998 after the fall of the dictator Suharto. The group primarily makes large painted banners for public space. Baravalle examines their continued focus on intersectional solidarity – particularly along lines of class and shared anti-colonial struggles – analysing their previous exhibitions in Venice, Kassel, and beyond.
AcademicArtSolidarities
Two Short Stories by Ibtisam Azem, trans. by Mayada Ibrahim
In these two short stories by Palestinian writer Ibtisam Azem, things are not quite as they seem. In 'Nashwa', a woman wakes up in the aftermath of a street protest with no recollection of her actions. In 'The Old Woman and the Poppies', Nada learns why the poppies surrounding her home are so significant and what they represent for her people and land. Translated from Arabic by Mayada Ibrahim, this fiction is simultaneously disconcerting and grounding — unfolding in medias res, with scenes and imagery that linger long in the reader's mind.
FictionSolidarities
A Street Found in Every Neighbourhood by Ghadeer Abusneineh, trans. by Ibrahim Fawzy
In this short story by Ghadeer Abusneineh, set in a Central American context, the isolation of two neighbours is juxtaposed with the lively happenings of a new bar across the road. Later, we are shown various vignettes of women in the neighbourhood as they go about their daily lives, often intersecting with local men in ways that feel compromising. The story is accompanied by a translator's note from Ibrahim Fawzy, who has translated the story from Arabic. With an accompanying illustration by Simone Khanyi Hadebe.
FictionSolidarities
Latest News and Events
9 November 2026
From the Word to the World: Workshop Series with Haider Shahbaz
We're delighted that our 2026/7 International Translator in Residence, Haider Shahbaz, will be tutoring an online course for us this winter. Across four workshops, Haider will cover many aspects of translation, including: spiralling out from the intricacies of words to the wider impact that anticolonial periodicals have had in the world. These workshops will take place monthly on Zoom from December onwards, and are open to early-career translators anywhere in the world. They can be booked individually, or you can sign up to attend multiple workshops at a discounted price.
31 October 2026
Meet the 2026 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize Winners
We are thrilled to announce the winners of the 2026 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize in Poetry, Fiction, and Life Writing. On the winners, Prize Chair Ellah Wakatama commented: ‘Judging pieces from across the globe, and in a range of genres was a challenge for me and my fellow judges; with each piece presenting an invitation to a different perspective, inflection, and voice. We were looking for ambition, originality, and urgency. The winners in each category represent the very best of these qualities.’
8 October 2026
Announcing the 2026 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize Shortlist
We are pleased to share the shortlist for the 2026 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize, judged by Santanu Bhattacharya (Fiction), Jen Calleja (Life Writing), and Mona Kareem (Poetry), and chaired by Ellah Wakatama.
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