Hatred of the written word has taken hold of state institutions—
institutions of security and of executive power…
Sarah Rifky is a writer and curator from Cairo living in Somerville, MA. She writes essays around art, as well as non-fiction stories, and has contributed to publications including Art in America, Art Agenda, Bidoun, the Exhibitionist, and Mada Masr, among others. She is co-editor of Thresholds 47:Repeat, Positionen: Zeitgenössische Künstler aus der Arabischen Welt and Damascus: Artists, Tourists and Secret Agents. She wrote The Going Insurrection (2012). A journal and non-profit artistic platform are both named after “Qalqalah,” the eponymous protagonist of two of her stories. Rifky is a Ph.D. candidate in History, Theory and Criticism, and the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT.