There is a tradition that in the latter half of the 5th century AD, a group of Christian exiles arrived in Ethiopia from Byzantium, led by an elderly monk named Abuno Aregawi. Among their many achievements, they are credited with establishing a monastic system that survives in the country to this day. Known simply as…

That area of Northern Sudan where the mighty River Nile twists and contorts in great serpentine coils (as if threatening to turn its waters back to their source), was for centuries the territory of the mysterious Christian kingdom of Makuria. Little is known for certain about it. Landlocked and isolated from the rest of the…

The Lady of Qalat by Ryszard Antolak Thirty miles or so south of Shiraz, lies the little village of Qalat, situated among rich orchards of pomegranates and figs. It is a narrow, cramped Sassanian village, constructed on the side of a steep mountain streaked with horizontal lines, as if mauled by a gigantic lion. It…

When I recall all the scattered fragments of that initial encounter, I never should have asked her to play for me. The first Muse is the cruellest, ripping at our complacency, slashing at our innocence, setting our desires upon impossible horizons. She was a schoolgirl with unbound hair, eleven years old, (and I not much…

BANNISHED TO SIBERIA 1940 Helena Woloch Antolak THE ROAD TO THE EAST  When I look back to those distant days, what do I see? The summer of 1939 was one of the warmest anyone could remember. The sun shone as if it wanted to warm us, to make up for all the years ahead which…

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