July Blalack

May 2021 Image: Maouya Azziz, Untitled. Courtesy of Imago Mundi. This month we present fiction and poetry from Mauritania. Simultaneously Arab, West African, Saharan, and Sahelian, and straddling the Arabophone and Francophone spheres, Mauritania boasts a rich literature reflecting its multiple cultures. Ahmed Isselmou depicts a global currency system under cyberattack.

As the Islamic State group captured territory across Syria and Iraq and began to gain a semblance of statehood, analysts looked to history for precedents that could explain the caliphate’s recruitment strategy and appeal. Given the organization’s heavy use of apocalyptic narratives and eschatological imagery, including lore surrounding the coming of a messianic figure known as the Mahdi, many pointed to the Sudanese Mahdi’s movement as a clue.

The release of the Hollywood film The Mauritanian earlier this year made a harrowing tale of torture and injustice at Guantánamo Bay the first Mauritanian story to truly reach the world.