The Pro Ballet Dancer Who Rose From The Refugee Camps

Ahmed Joudah began life in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, auditioned for the main ballet company in Damascus as a completely self-taught dancer when he was 16, then had to flee Syria when the civil war broke out. Now, he says, “I’m a dancer and dance is my passport. But when it comes to the official papers, I have no passport. I’m a stateless refugee, so I have no home. I have no place to go back home, to build a life.” – Deutsche Welle

Why Women Writers Love Rebooting Homer

As anyone who’s read The Iliad knows, it’s about men being mad at each other and going to war. That results in some great writing, true, but there’s a lot more left to say about the cost of anger and war. “The novels compel us to look at that cost, not by a poignant glimpse to the side, as in the Iliad, but as their chief subject. As well they might: after all, slavery, massacres and rape remain real-world consequences of conflict and male aggression.” – The Guardian (UK)