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| watercolor on paper, 2013-2014 |
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| Cover image, ink, 2013 |
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| Art, ink, 2013 |
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| Music, ink, 2013 |
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| Litterature, ink, 2013 |
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"Mustafa Khalifa (b.1948) is a Syrian author who was imprisoned for more than twelve years by the Syrian regime for his political activities as a member of the leftist opposition to the regime of Hafez al-Assad. From 1982-1994, Khalifa was held without trial at various state security prisons, including the infamous Tadmur Military Prison, a detention center described as a "kingdom of death and madness" by poet Faraj Bayraqdar and the "absolute prison" by dissident Yassin al-Haj Salih. He is the author of The Shell, which has been lauded as one of the finest examples of Arabic prison literature, and which has been translated into French as La Coquille. He currently lives in exile, where he continues to write against the al-Assad regime."
"My first flight was to Miami. It was the busiest international route in the city, and also the most sought after: I competed and I won. I wanted to go to Miami because buying things is cheap and the weather is warm and because the men aren't gringos. Young flight attendants don't like gringos because they don't know how to fuck; the older ones do, but they don't fuck anymore.
Have you been to Miami? I asked Julian. He said he had, but I could tell he was lying. Julian was watching TV in my living room, a boxing match was on. My brother was in the shower because they were going to a party. My mom was on the phone with my grandma, some relative's cousin had died. My dad had gone out to pay some traffic fines."
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"When the tragic and senseless 228 Incident occurred, I was still very much a child. Trauma was in the air; I knew that something had happened, but I didn't understand what exactly. But an episode about two years later awakened me to it fully. I was fourteen years old, in my second year of junior high, when I had a gun pointed at me by a military officer who then escorted me to a police station, where I was detained overnight..."