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Commentary, Essays

Letters to Strangers: Verbage

By Maria Amir, Mohsin Shafi

In which the author contemplates the fragility of writing…

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Featured Articles, Magazine

Cutting Through The Fat

By Brett Stout, Maria Amir

“Perhaps the most annoying pro-choice synonym I have discovered for being fat is “bubbly”. As if the extra poundage somehow magically morphs into excess humor and verbosity,” writes Features Editor Maria Amir in the Winter 2014 issue.

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Commentary, Essays

Letters to Strangers: Sacred Spaces

By Maria Amir

In this month’s column, The Missing Slate’s Maria Amir writes of sacred spaces – the car, a new role, and the awakening that they perpetuate.

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Commentary, Essays

Letters to Strangers: Shifting Allegiances

By Maria Amir

Letters to Strangers is a series where Features Editor Maria Amir writes to a faceless stranger of the very intimate and the very public…

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Featured Articles, Magazine

Free Falling

By Maria Amir

In exquisite prose, Features Editor Maria Amir ruminates ‘freedom’, what it means now and whether an absolute definition is even merited.

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Commentary, Essays

Letters to Strangers: Betweens

By Maria Amir

In this week’s column, Maria Amir contemplates the surprising freedom in being a divorcee in Pakistan…

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Commentary, Essays

Letters to Strangers

By Maria Amir

Features Editor Maria Amir writes to a stranger because sometimes, unloading to a stranger is all that’s needed.

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Articles, Essays

The Moral of the Story

By Maria Amir

Morality is difficult enough in life, but morality in literature spans a much richer tapestry writes Maria Amir.

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Magazine

The Happily Ever After Alternative

By Maria Amir

Maria Amir refurbishes the fantasy in this digital edition exclusive

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In the Magazine

A Word from the Editor

Don’t cry like a girl. Be a (wo)man.

Why holding up the women in our lives can help build a nation, in place of tearing it down.

Literature

This House is an African House

“This house is an African house./ This your body is an African woman’s body…” By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

Shoots

“Sapling legs bend smoothly, power foot in place,/ her back, parallel to solid ground,/ makes her torso a table of support…” By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

A Dry Season Doctor in West Africa

“She presses her toes together. I will never marry, she says. Jamais dans cette vie! Where can I find a man like you?” By...

In the Issue

Property of a Sorceress

“She died under mango trees, under kola nut/ and avocado trees, her nose pressed to their roots,/ her hands buried in dead leaves, her...

Literature

What Took Us to War

“What took us to war has again begun,/ and what took us to war/ has opened its wide mouth/ again to confuse us.” By...

Literature

Sometimes, I Close My Eyes

“sometimes, this is the way of the world,/ the simple, ordinary world, where things are/ sometimes too ordinary to matter. Sometimes,/ I close my...

Literature

Quarter to War

“The footfalls fading from the streets/ The trees departing from the avenues/ The sweat evaporating from the skin…” By Jumoke Verissimo.

Literature

Transgendered

“Lagos is a chronicle of liquid geographies/ Swimming on every tongue…” By Jumoke Verissimo.

Fiction

Sketches of my Mother

“The mother of my memories was elegant. She would not step out of the house without her trademark red lipstick and perfect hair. She...

Fiction

The Way of Meat

“Every day—any day—any one of us could be picked out for any reason, and we would be… We’d part like hair, pushing into the...

Fiction

Between Two Worlds

“Ursula spotted the three black students immediately. Everyone did. They could not be missed because they kept to themselves and apart from the rest….”...

Essays

Talking Gender

“In fact it is often through the uninformed use of such words that language becomes a tool in perpetuating sexism and violence against women...

Essays

Unmasking Female Circumcision

“Though the origins of the practice are unknown, many medical historians believe that FGM dates back to at least 2,000 years.” Gimel Samera looks...

Essays

Not Just A Phase

“…in the workplace, a person can practically be forced out of their job by discrimination, taking numerous days off for fear of their physical...

Essays

The Birth of Bigotry

“The psychology of prejudice demands that we are each our own moral police”. Maria Amir on the roots of bigotry and intolerance.

Fiction

The Score

“The person on the floor was unmistakeably dead. It looked like a woman; she couldn’t be sure yet…” By Hawa Jande Golakai.

“It’s important to bring this devastatingly misogynist and sexist culture into the drawing rooms of society, supplanting the ever permanent discussions of politics and religious discourse, two themes sewn into the lifeblood of Pakistan. How we treat women and how they are perceived in society are sadly closely intertwined with how they see themselves. We must teach young girls the power of ambition, something they have in droves as children – ask any five-year-old girl what she wants to be and I doubt you’ll get “housewife” as an answer. These are protocols we imprint on them as they grow older, reminding them to never dip a toe out “too far”. ” ~ Maryam Piracha, ‘Don't Cry Like A Girl, Be A (Wo)man’

“It is difficult, when you are not part of a community, to see what happens within it. It may also be extremely difficult to come out of a community and reveal truths about how you’ve been mistreated due to your sexual identity. The struggle for social acceptance is a long, hard road, but it is not something that can be accomplished in isolation by the victimized. Rather, the instigators need to pause and rethink why they pour such hate on their fellow human beings. We might think that something is just a phase, and perhaps for a minority it is. For the rest, it is a gift we are cursing them for.” ~ Aaron Grierson, ‘Not Just A Phase’

“When seemingly decent people make jokes linking masculinity, dominance and superiority to the vile act of rape, and express pride over it, they don’t realize that the language they are using not only trivializes the trauma, horror and pain of rape victims and survivors, but also makes them culpable in promoting rape culture. In fact, it is often through the uninformed use of such words that language becomes a tool in perpetuating sexism and violence against women in society.” ~ Sana Fatima Hussain, ‘Talking Gender’


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