Humera Afridi

Humera Afridi is a former Fellow for Open City’s Muslim Communities Fellowship. She is a 2017 NYFA Gregory Millard Artist Fellow in Nonfiction Literature. Her work has appeared in Granta, Guernica, Lithub, and the Journal of Postcolonial Writing among other publications. She is writing a biography of Noor Inayat Khan.

By Humera Afridi:

Writer’s Block? What’s That?

Midwood Magic: A Coney Island Philanthropy of Hope

A Spirited Sisterhood: Arab Women Rise [Part 4]

Working Together As One Hand: Arab Women Rise [Part 3]

Your Kids Need Hub! They Need Love: Arab Women Rise [Part 2]

When The Butcher Cries: A Visit to an Organic Halal Slaughterhouse

These Streets are Ours Too: Arab Women Rise (Part 1)

Hitting Your Stillspot

Bavarian Forest

Arena, Performer

A More Fundamentally Caring Economy: An Interview with Ai-jen Poo

Following the Path to Water

Lakshmi’s Night: A Muslim Woman Honors Diwali

The Democracy of Patience: Inside a Polling Station in Queens

Ramadan Meditations: A Muslim Woman’s Journey Towards Faith and Acceptance

Nimboo Paani: Spiced Limeade

Mohammad Zuhoor-ul-Haqq, Spiritual Street Vendor

Jackson Heights Greenmarket: “So Many Accents!”

Recent Articles

About the Art: Translation Column

By Transpacific Literary Project

Juyon Lee’s work plays with light and distance.

Reprise

Poetry

By Grace Marie Liu

Now it’s raining and I’m sixteen and unlicensed.

Go Back to China

Essays

By Lavinia Liang

What do return narratives tell us about a changing world? As China has risen to economic power, a trend in Chinese American literature has emerged.

Call for Submissions: Criticism

By Soleil Davíd

An open call for criticism pitches

When the Wor(l)ds Return

Poetry

By Shyam Patel

I once lost my name in a pyre

The Men

Poetry

By Ethan Luk

There are few men who will communicate with you in all the languages you know.

Visions of Asian America in Tamio Shiraishi’s Jazz

Essays

By Harrison Vijay Tsui

As my math grades plummeted, my interest in trombone records skyrocketed

Two Poems by Sennah Yee

Poetry

By Sennah Yee

“Ringu (1998)” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)”

For Fish to Swallow Oceans

Poetry

By Ela Kini

I have built my new tongue from old corpses.

I dislike eggplants because they made me feel incapable

Poetry

By Cynthia Chen

their oceanic smell that screams where they come from instead of where they are carried to

Afterglow

Poetry

By Travis Chi Wing Lau

As if it were instinct, you held tightly
to a slim bar of sunlight

Learning Urdu the Pakistani Canadian Way

By Hina Husain

Kids Bolo brings Urdu to families living in the West.

Dating History

Poetry

By Regine Cabato

I could make it alone
but I don’t want to.

Gila | Madness

Fiction

By Topilus B. Tebai

With a bottle full of chicken blood, she bathed the Lieutenant in red, from head to toe.

The Curious Incident of the Whale in the Forest

Poetry

By Pingmei Lan

Turns out it, too, wanted
to know more than what the body can do.

Pig Story

Poetry

By Asa Drake, Rhoni Blankenhorn

God I loved every one of those pigs we ate.

LITURGY

Poetry

By MICHAEL CHANG

when i called him a callas lover ` of coz i meant careless

Two Poems by Julia Wong Kcomt, translated by Jennifer Shyue

Poetry

By Julia Wong Kcomt

“a feather falls” and “by the river”

손 / Hand

Poetry

By Cho Ji Hoon

What time the young man’s life ended, no one knows.

My Neck Hurt

Poetry

By A. R. Zarif

birds are a scimitar waiting