Noura

“Behind me is silence, and ahead of me is silence.’ And that was it. That was her whole answer. Isn’t that perfect?” “Yeah, that’s beautiful,” said Cyrus, though it confused him. “What I mean is, I think maybe you’ll find your real ending once you stop looking for it,” Orkideh said. “I think real endings tend to work their way in from the outside.”
― Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!

“Curating the native as “respectable” is a misplaced priority because it redirects critical scrutiny away from the colonizer, which in turn neglects the innate injustice of the colonial project.”
― Mohammed El-Kurd, Perfect Victims: And the Politics of Appeal

“A civilization that proves incapable of solving the problems it creates is a decadent civilization.

A civilization that chooses to close its eyes to its most crucial problems is a stricken civilization.

A civilization that uses its principles for trickery and deceit is a dying civilization.”
― Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism

“But she didn’t want to be strong. Because if she were strong then she would be sober, and if she were sober she would have to consider the consequences of her actions. Then she’d have to look into the chasm.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Dragon Republic