Unwritten Lives

For a snapshot of the authoritarian era to which today’s launch of Unwritten Lives is a response, we don’t have to rewind too far, just to the recent past, to moments that still reside fresh in recent memory.

It has been five years since renowned Delhi University linguistics professor Hany Babu was arrested on 28 July, 2020. He is being held without charge in India’s notorious Taloja Central Jail on the outskirts of Mumbai. Here his former student takes a roll call to remember his name, because “naming is work we do for one another.”

Khayam Turki is not merely a political prisoner. He is a turning point, demonstrating how President Kaïs Saïed’s authoritarian rule has transformed Tunisia from the beacon of the Arab Spring to the laboratory of democratic disillusionment ignored by Europe.