I have a long memoir-essay out, looking back at a Christmas I spent in Pariang, South Sudan, during the war, and thinking about the position of the researcher, the place of knowledge in conflict, and what friendship is.
It's an epistolary essay, written to Jérôme Tubiana, and it is one of the things I have written over the last six years I have liked the most. You can read it here.
Over at African Arguments, I’ve just published a new essay, written with Ferenc Dávid Markó, on how the South Sudanese peace agreement has largely destroyed whatever popular legitimacy the South Sudanese political system once had. You can read it here.
I have a new piece up with The New Humanitarian, looking at refugee returns and IDP movements in South Sudan. You can read it here.
This Protection of Civilians site in Malakal is home to some of the two million internally displaced South Sudanese. Another 2.3 million people live outside the country as refugees. (Sam Mednick/TNH)
I have a short piece of journalism up at The New Humanitarian, on youth protests against humanitarian agencies. You can read it here.
Camps of internally displaced people in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo (2008). | United Nations
I have a new essay up online at The Baffler. It’s about liberal dreams of peacebuilding and their consequences. You can read it here.
I have an essay out in the new issue of The Baffler. It’s about the war photography of Peter van Agtmael and the American visual imaginary of Afghanistan and Iraq.
According to The Bookseller, I've signed a contract with the publisher of my dreams, Fitzcarraldo Editions, to write a book about bureaucracy, violence, and lies. So, while this may yet prove to be a vicious fiction weaved by an uncaring God (for God is indeed a purveyor of stories), for now, at least, I'm deliriously happy.
I wrote an essay for the New Left Review on the occasion of the ten year anniversary of South Sudan's secession. It's about class formation, ghost soldiers, and the will-not-to-know. You can read it here.
I was fortunate enough to be shortlisted for the Fitzcarraldo Essay Prize 2021.
“The winner will be announced by 1 May. The judges are Joanna Biggs, Brian Dillon, Joanna Kavenna, Max Porter and Jacques Testard. The judges are looking for essays that explore and expand the possibilities of the essay form, with no restrictions on theme or subject matter. The Fitzcarraldo Editions/Mahler & LeWitt Studios Essay Prize aims to find the best emerging essay writers and to give them a chance to develop and showcase their talent. It also provides the winner with their first experience of publishing a book, from the planning, research and writing of it through to the editing, production and publicity stages.”
I have an essay out in the new issue of N+1. It’s about South Sudan, war, and the politics of expertise. You can read it here.
A couple of years ago, David Lazar asked if I might like to submit an essay for a future issue of Hotel Amerika, and I proposed an essay on waiting. Waiting for documents, waiting in refugee camps, and the peculiar qualities of suspended life, lived waiting for a future that may not arrive.
Sadly, I made him wait for it! Happily, though, the essay is in the new issue of Hotel Amerika. It's about Cairo, invisibility, exile, and bureaucracy.
Last last year, I talked with Faisal Devji and Aaron Tugendhaft about the latter’s new book, The Idols of ISIS, as part of the new Middle Eastern podcast series from St Anthony’s College Middle East Centre. You can listen to the podcast here.
I have a short story out in the new issue of Passenger’s, which you can read here. It is about domestic space and silence.
Last week, I (virtually) spoke at Webster University here in Geneva, about my current residency at the Embassy of Foreign of Artists, where I am doing research for a novel, the narrative for which emerges in dialogue with the archive of the UNHCR.
I spoke about history and literature, the fragment and the bureaucrat, redemption and biometric surveys, amongst other themes.
You can hear the talk, here.
Yesterday, my terrible lockdown hair, egregious quarantine moustache, and only slightly more salubrious ideas got to participate in a great event at the DISS (Danish Institute for International Studies), convened by Peer Schouten. With Louisa Lombard, Kasper Hoffmann, and Koen Vlassenroot, I had a great time discussing rebels, soldiers, and the logic of state sovereignty in CAR, Congo, and South Sudan.
The video of the event is now up, including my hair, moustache, and ideas.
At least the ideas might be worth a watch. The video is available here.
I just published: Why Biden shouldn't extend an olive branch to Republicans. An op-ed I wrote with Ainsley LeSure for the Guardian on why the Democrats should stop trying to placate that mythical beast, the moderate Republican. 26 November.
I published an essay in Cabinet magazine’s Kiosk on the enduring legacy of the paranoia of the war on terror. 29 October. You can read it here.
An essay I wrote with Jérôme Tubiana for Foreign Policy on the past, present, and future of asylum and the 1951 refugee convention is up. You can read it here.
I have a short piece out with Naomi Pendle on the UN’s decision to withdraw protection from the Protection of Civilian sites in South Sudan. It’s in African Arguments, and you can read it here.