Safia Elhillo

Jan 18, 2025 | radicalbookscollective.substack.com | Mohammed El-Kurd |Safia Elhillo |Omar Al Akkad

We have a ceasefire for Gaza. I have said and written these words before. While this is a huge relief on one level, I also woke up to the news that 87 people were killed right as the deal was signed and 23 of these were children. Cautious optimism and held breaths prevail because Israel and the US remain bad faith actors, and savagery has always been their modus operandi. I cannot help but reflect on what happened one year ago this week.

Dec 23, 2024 | newyorker.com | Safia Elhillo

For a week we walkedthe roadside without pavementto the lake, cooked meals in the heavyiron pan, slept in the afternoonsand talked easily, bare feetpropped against the furnitureThe year, that year, had been especiallycruel. Sickness and war.

Sep 19, 2024 | sonderbooks.com | Safia Elhillo

by Safia Elhillo read by the Author Review posted September 19, 2024 Listening Library, 2024. 7 hours, 55 minutes. Review written September 16, 2024, from a library eaudiobook. Starred Review This book reminds me of The Poet X, by Elizabeth Acevedo. In both books, we've got a young poet author writing about a teen poet growing as a poet and learning to perform her poetry - but also in conflict with her mother about a relationship.

Apr 5, 2024 | republic.com.ng | Safia Elhillo

If your life at this moment was a line from a poem, what poem would that be and what line? A representative line of my life at the moment can be found in Aracelis Girmay’s poem, You Are Who I Love. It goes this way: ‘Finding ourselves here, witnesses to each other’s tenderness, which, this moment, is fury, is rage, which, this moment, is another way of saying: You are who I love.’  What is your writing process: edit as you write or draft first, then edit?   I definitely draft first, then edit.

Mar 18, 2024 | safiamafia.substack.com | Safia Elhillo

For a long while the prevailing thought was that reading fostered empathy, did the work of the simile between the experience of the reader and the experience contained in the writing. [       ], they’re just like us! They’re as human as we are. We’ve watched the cracks form in that project ever since.