Fatema Haidari

May 7, 2024 | wordswithoutborders.org | Ahmed Naji |Fatema Haidari |Ruth Kemp |Alexander Aguayo

1. Las Vegas was brimming with mosques. As soon as I’d typed “mosque near me” into the Google Maps search, myriad red dots displayed themselves all at once on my screen. The Al-Hamada mosque, one of the first Las Vegas mosques founded in the seventies, and winner of a five-star rating, boasted a review claiming that its writer had “felt at peace” as soon as he’d crossed over the threshold.

Mar 20, 2024 | wordswithoutborders.org | Patryk Pufelski |Batool Haidari |Alexander Aguayo |Fatema Haidari

I could see her white hands and long, thin fingers among the green stems and huge leaves of the cucumber plants. Her hands looked unusually beautiful. It was the beginning of Asad and extremely hot. She was dripping all over with sweat. Her forehead was unusually wet, as if she were washing her face. Her cheeks were red, though she looked pale as yogurt from dehydration. We were given only a one-and-a-half liter bottle of water per day.