A book censor is on the look-out for objectionable content; a daughter mourns her father during her journey to fulfill his final wishes; a desperate man runs around a city to pay off his debts. Critical of regimes and nonetheless nostalgic for their home countries, Mo(a)t is a compendium of stories from six different authors reflecting on the paradoxical demands of our day-to-day lives. Each story is written with the author’s unique style, highlighting their skills in contemporary Arabic literature.

What binds the stories of Mo(a)t together is the fact that they are transnational. The stories in this anthology are not centered around a theme, but rather, a concept. Each author lives outside their birth country — whether by choice or exile — yet, as writers, they’ve chosen to continue to express themselves in their mother tongue, rather than in the language of their adopted countries. From South Sudan to the Western Sahara, the authors in this collection reveal the symbiotic relationship between ourselves and our communities, and the freedom to step beyond these boundaries.

Translated by: Sawad Hussain, Nariman Youssef