En un mundo saturado de noticias fugaces, pocas veces nos detenemos a escuchar los lamentos que provienen de las ruinas olvidadas. Acabo de traducir, para El Cuaderno Digital, un texto que apareció originalmente en Counterpunch sobre la catástrofe en Yemen — y aún hoy ese país arde bajo el silencio del resto del mundo. El…
Over twenty years ago, I lived in Yemen. Decades later, I found myself receiving WhatsApp messages from friends and former students in Sana’a—as bombs rained down around them. Real-time updates from people I cared about, living through hell. That experience will never leave me. What I didn’t expect was to see that same war discussed…
In this week’s Camino a Ítaca that time I stumbled into a war in Yemen. The Houthis are now playing into the hands of the Iranians and making their population suffer even more. Click over to read the original version in Spanish in el HOY or read the English translation below. (PDF en castellano abajo)…
Bi Ali, Yemen In this week’s Camino a Ítaca a Christmas adventure on the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula from several years back. Click over to read the original published in Spanish in el HOY or read the English translation below. (PDF en castellano abajo) Behind us, a blanket of blinding white sand drifted…
Lapiz Luzuli The terrible tragedy unfolding in slow motion in Afghanistan reminded me of gems on sale in the open air markets of Yemen. In this week’s Camino a Ítaca, I look back at the Afghan stones that were so valuable and the near hysteria of right-wing conservatives, desperate to declare their deity somehow more…
In this week’s Camino a Ítaca I’m reminded of the perseverance of some of my brave, female students in Yemen. If they could, I can. Click over to read the original in Spanish or the English version below. (PDF en castellano abajo). Standing in front of a new class is always somewhat nerve-wracking, especially if…
Bir Ali, Yemen Different places, different times, different Christmases. This week’s Camino a Ítaca goes back to the beaches along the coast of Yemen in search of the Three Wisest of Men. Click over to the original piece in Spanish or read the English version below. Tambien se puede ver el original en castellano abajo…
Next stop on the Camino a Ítaca, a look back more than fifteen years to a taxi ride across Crater in Aden, Yemen and a curious perspective on colonialism. Click over here for the published Spanish version or read the English version below. From the outside it looked like most of the taxis that you…
Writing in the local paper. Local Issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here’s my version, then theirs, which can now be seen online (in Spanish) as well.
Writing in the local paper. Local issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here’s my version, then theirs. It was long after the British were forced out of their toehold in Arabia and about a decade before the Saudi bombs began to rain down indiscriminately among…