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Hidden Cities

@hidden-cities.com
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Part travelogue, part global news brief, Hidden Cities is a new magazine that illuminates the world. www.hidden-cities.com

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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 20h
Grateful to publish this piece by Alhakam Shaar in @hidden-cities.com on returning to Aleppo after years of exile and war, and what it means to finally see of what was lost and what can still be rebuilt. "We’ll be back. We’re home, after all." www.hidden-cities.com/p/home-again...
hidden-cities.com
Home Again in Aleppo
On finally returning to Syria from exile to rebuild what was lost.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
"Why have I come back to writing about war? Once again, memory returns, more insistent than ever. Between doubt and certainty lies the narrative of truth. We must approach language’s shadows and ghosts, we must listen to the voices of the victims." Samar Yazbek in @hidden-cities.com:
hidden-cities.com
Samar Yazbek: Giving Voice to Gaza's Survivors
What happened to the people of Gaza who survived the genocide? Is it even right that we consider them survivors?
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Hidden Cities @hidden-cities.com · 28/09/2026
“The Translator’s Betrayal,” a new poem from Gaza by Mohammed Abu Lebda. www.hidden-cities.com/p/the-transl...
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Samar Yazbek's Your Presence Is a Danger to Your Life: Voices of Survival and Witness in Gaza, translated by Leri Price, has been longlisted for a National Book Award. Yazbek was also a finalist in 2024 and 2021. @orbooks.bsky.social Read an excerpt from her harrowing book in @hidden-cities.com:
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Hidden Cities @hidden-cities.com · 17/09/2026
“The Assad regime of the early 2020s was riddled with contradictions,” Daniel Neep writes of Assad’s last years in power and how he left Syria in ashes. “From the outside, it was difficult to discern the degree of the regime’s degradation.” www.hidden-cities.com/p/how-syrias...
hidden-cities.com
How Syria’s Future After Assad Echoes With Its Past
The debates in Syria today resonate with the same set of challenges that earlier generations of Syrians faced.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
“Despite the historical rupture delivered by the astonishing implosion of the Assad regime, the debates in Syria of the 2020s resonated with the same set of challenges earlier generations of Syrians had faced.” Daniel Neep in @hidden-cities.com on Syria’s future echoing with its past:
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
My 9/11 story is transcribing interviews with WTC evacuees two years later, when I was 18, as an office assistant at Columbia. I heard survivors recount things I never forgot. I wrote here about what what we remember about 9/11 and what “Never Forget” left out. www.hidden-cities.com/p/what-never...
hidden-cities.com
What ‘Never Forget’ Left Out
In the instant, mass memorialization of 9/11 that defined the Bush era—and after—there were things America wanted to forget.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
After 9/11, there were things America wanted to forget. @hidden-cities.com www.hidden-cities.com/p/what-never...
hidden-cities.com
What ‘Never Forget’ Forgot
The instant, mass memorialization of 9/11 that defined the Bush era—and after—has always left things out.
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Hidden Cities @hidden-cities.com · 07/09/2026
“As international support remains scarce, Syrians will keep doing what they have done for years: Managing, as best they can, from one day to the next.” Alex Simon on Syria after Assad and reckoning with what has changed and what has not. www.hidden-cities.com/p/into-syria...
hidden-cities.com
Into Syria’s Day After
Much has changed since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and much has not.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
"Much has changed since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and much has not. The challenges Syria now faces, and the resources it brings to bear in tackling them, are years and decades in the making. A starting point is to reckon with that legacy." www.hidden-cities.com/p/into-syria...
hidden-cities.com
Into Syria’s Day After
Much has changed since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and much has not.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
"Syria has, today more than at any point since the birth of its police state in 1958, the space to call its problems what they are and argue over their solutions," Alex Simon writes in @hidden-cities.com — from his terrific new book "Syrians in the Shadow of War" by @aucpress.bsky.social
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Hidden Cities @hidden-cities.com · 27/08/2026
“A regime that sloshes hundreds of billions of dollars at the supposed visionaries peopling Silicon Valley, without any concerns for silly things like democracy—was the ultimate end goal for these tech oligarchs.” From UNITED STATES OF OLIGARCHY, out now by @stmartinspress.bsky.social
hidden-cities.com
How Saudi Arabia Captured the U.S. Economy Through American Oligarchs
Infatuation with Saudi money—and tyranny—reveals what many oligarchs envision for America’s future.
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Hidden Cities @hidden-cities.com · 27/08/2026
“To hear these tech oligarchs tell it, the Saudi regime was hardly one of the most repressive governments on the planet. It was, instead, a potential model of the future,” @cjcmichel.bsky.social writes, in a new essay on how Saudi Arabia captured the US economy. www.hidden-cities.com/p/how-saudi-...
hidden-cities.com
How Saudi Arabia Captured the U.S. Economy Through American Oligarchs
Infatuation with Saudi money—and tyranny—reveals what many oligarchs envision for America’s future.
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Casey Michel @cjcmichel.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Honored to have my latest book excerpt from UNITED STATES OF OLIGARCHY in the fantastic @hidden-cities.com, all about how Silicon Valley got in bed with Saudi Arabia—and how much American tech oligarchs look up to MBS.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
I've written about Samar Yazbek's breathtaking work since 2012, when her diary of Syria's uprising was published. I interviewed her in 2021, in what felt like a different time in both Syria and Gaza. I'm honored to publish this essay by her in @hidden-cities.com adapted from her harrowing new book.
hidden-cities.com
Samar Yazbek: Giving Voice to Gaza's Survivors
What happened to the people of Gaza who survived the genocide? Is it even right that we consider them survivors?
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
“What happened to the people of Gaza who survived the genocide? Is it even right that we consider them survivors? Where does human pain go when justice is absent?” A beautiful, haunting essay by Samar Yazbek in @hidden-cities.com adapted from her new book: www.hidden-cities.com/p/samar-yazb...
hidden-cities.com
Samar Yazbek: Giving Voice to Gaza's Survivors
What happened to the people of Gaza who survived the genocide? Is it even right that we consider them survivors?
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
“It wasn’t only that these firms were taking Saudi money. To hear these tech oligarchs tell it, the Saudi regime was a potential model of the future.” @cjcmichel.bsky.social in @hidden-cities.com on how Saudi Arabia captured America’s economy and oligarchy: www.hidden-cities.com/p/how-saudi-...
hidden-cities.com
How Saudi Arabia Captured the U.S. Economy Through American Oligarchs
Infatuation with Saudi money—and tyranny—reveals what many oligarchs envision for America’s future.
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Hidden Cities @hidden-cities.com · 18/08/2026
"The people of Gaza don’t need our pity, but our acknowledgment of their bravery, their dignity and their rights, and their urgent wish to disclose the truth of their tragedy." Syrian writer and journalist Samar Yazbek on giving voice to Gaza's survivors: www.hidden-cities.com/p/samar-yazb...
hidden-cities.com
Samar Yazbek: Giving Voice to Gaza's Survivors
What happened to the people of Gaza who survived the genocide? Is it even right that we consider them survivors?
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Hidden Cities @hidden-cities.com · 18/08/2026
"The people of Gaza don’t need our pity, but our acknowledgment of their bravery, their dignity and their rights, and their urgent wish to disclose the truth of their tragedy." Syrian writer and journalist Samar Yazbek on giving voice to Gaza's survivors: www.hidden-cities.com/p/samar-yazb...
hidden-cities.com
Samar Yazbek: Giving Voice to Gaza's Survivors
What happened to the people of Gaza who survived the genocide? Is it even right that we consider them survivors?
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
“Those phantoms embodied a recurring symbol of humanity’s defeat, as if Palestinians had become Syrians and Syrians Palestinians, across a shared space of brutality that I have witnessed, written about and buried in my heart.” -Samar Yazbek www.hidden-cities.com/p/samar-yazb...
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
“In those moments, the destruction in Syria was re-enacted for me. The silhouettes of the victims, the very same moans—it was disaster, all over again.” New in @hidden-cities.com: Syrian writer and journalist Samar Yazbek on giving voice to Gaza’s survivors, from her harrowing new book.
hidden-cities.com
Samar Yazbek: Giving Voice to Gaza's Survivors
What happened to the people of Gaza who survived the genocide? Is it even right that we consider them survivors?
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Hidden Cities @hidden-cities.com · 16/08/2026
Jordan’s King Abdullah has long “promised to finally reform a political system that denied citizens genuine representation and privileged the monarchy above all else.” But they have been empty pledges, playing to a Western audience, Aaron Magid writes. www.hidden-cities.com/p/king-abdul...
hidden-cities.com
King Abdullah’s False Promises of Reform in Jordan
The Western-backed monarch’s purported commitment to political liberalization doesn't match reality for Jordanians under his long rule.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
“He never believed in political reform at all. He paid lip service,” charged Labib Kamhawi, an Amman-based political analyst. “The king is amassing all powers in his hands.” Aaron Magid in @hidden-cities.com on King Abdullah's false promises of reform: www.hidden-cities.com/p/king-abdul...
hidden-cities.com
King Abdullah’s False Promises of Reform in Jordan
The Western-backed monarch’s purported commitment to political liberalization doesn't match reality for Jordanians under his long rule.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Iran’s heightened tolerance for risk is one way of understanding its chokehold on Hormuz. A battered regime believes it has nothing to lose and everything to gain by controlling the strait, as Ben Soodavar writes here in @hidden-cities.com www.hidden-cities.com/p/iran-wont-...
hidden-cities.com
Iran Won't Give Up Its Leverage Over Hormuz
Threats to close the Strait of Hormuz were a decades-long Iranian bluff. Trump's war changed all that.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
New poetry in @hidden-cities.com, by Mohammed Abu Lebda in Gaza: www.hidden-cities.com/p/the-traged...
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
“Here again, that contradiction arises between the needs of the people to heal and rebuild and the needs of those in power to consolidate power.” @qunfuz.bsky.social in @hidden-cities.com on Syria’s reconstruction under Ahmed al-Sharaa: www.hidden-cities.com/p/returning-...
hidden-cities.com
Returning to Syria's Sea of Rubble
The ruins stretched for mile after mile. We drove on over dust to what had once been the suburbs of Damascus.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
“On one floor of one of the hollowed-out, monochrome, skeleton buildings, someone had fitted new windows. In others, families had claimed a space and a few meters of privacy by pinning a sheet across a blown-out wall. People are returning. More every day.” @qunfuz.bsky.social @saqibooks.bsky.social
hidden-cities.com
Returning to Syria's Sea of Rubble
The ruins stretched for mile after mile. We drove on over dust to what had once been the suburbs of Damascus.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
New in @hidden-cities.com: @qunfuz.bsky.social on returning to a Syria in ruins and what the rubble reveals — from his new book just published by @saqibooks.bsky.social “Someone had painted on an intact bit of wall the words Eid bil-eid n’amara min jadeed, or Hand in Hand We’ll Build It Anew.”
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Hidden Cities @hidden-cities.com · 18/06/2026
“There is a second injustice in being defined by the atrocity done to you,” @adamakary.bsky.social writes, introducing his new poem in @hidden-cities.com, “Both Sides of the Looking Glass.” “A strike on Beirut lands in Cairo. It lands anywhere anyone is still listening.”
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Hidden Cities @hidden-cities.com · 18/06/2026
“We watch the news and, we are the news. We turn it off. We make dinner.” Read and subscribe to @hidden-cities.com www.hidden-cities.com/p/both-sides...
hidden-cities.com
'Both Sides of the Looking Glass,' a Poem by Adam Makary
A strike on Beirut lands in Cairo. It lands anywhere anyone is still listening.
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Hidden Cities @hidden-cities.com · 18/06/2026
“There is a second injustice in being defined by the atrocity done to you,” @adamakary.bsky.social writes, introducing his new poem in @hidden-cities.com, “Both Sides of the Looking Glass.” “A strike on Beirut lands in Cairo. It lands anywhere anyone is still listening.”
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
“The Lebanese are often called resilient, but it is a strange compliment in moments like these. It asks people to endure what should never have been done to them, then praises them for enduring it.” A new poem and accompanying essay, clear-eyed and devastating, by @adamakary.bsky.social:
hidden-cities.com
'Both Sides of the Looking Glass,' a Poem by Adam Makary
A strike on Beirut lands in Cairo. It lands anywhere anyone is still listening.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
“The Gulf model is uniquely dependent on the psychological confidence of two highly mobile, risk-averse groups: international energy markets and the global expat talent pool that comprises the backbone of its professional sectors.” My interview w/ Dalia Ghanem on the end of the Gulf’s gilded age.
hidden-cities.com
Scholar Dalia Ghanem on the End of the Gulf’s Gilded Age
For Gulf states fearing the Iran war’s fallout, “narrative control is economic survival.”
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Hidden Cities @hidden-cities.com · 01/06/2026
www.hidden-cities.com/p/style-guid...
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Hidden Cities @hidden-cities.com · 01/06/2026
“say clash, say escalation, say cycle of violence even if one side owned all the sky.” Style Guide, a new poem by @adamakary.bsky.social in @hidden-cities.com www.hidden-cities.com/p/style-guid...
hidden-cities.com
'Style Guide,' a Poem by Adam Makary
Say clash, say escalation, say cycle of violence / even if one side owned all the sky.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
Thrilled to have this poem by Adam Makary in @hidden-cities.com, writing from Cairo. Style Guide the child is never named. the rubble is implied. do not use words like massacre unless sourced by three governments that did not bleed. www.hidden-cities.com/p/style-guid...
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
“Sisi embarked, with the full support of the senior brass, to militarize state organs and securitize public spaces in a quest to turn Egypt into what Michel Foucault envisioned as the ‘perfect military camp.’” @barracks.substack.com in @hidden-cities.com www.hidden-cities.com/p/how-sisis-...
hidden-cities.com
How Sisi's Militarized Urbanism Is Remaking Egypt
Sisi's regime has securitized public spaces and built mass surveillance into urban planning in a quest to turn Egypt into the “perfect military camp.”
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Hidden Cities @hidden-cities.com · 22/05/2026
In this essay adapted from “Counterrevolution in Egypt: Sisi’s New Republic,” @barracks.substack.com argues Sisi’s regime is “operating more like a colonial occupier than a national government.” @versobooks.bsky.social Read and subscribe @hidden-cities.com: www.hidden-cities.com/p/how-sisis-...
hidden-cities.com
How Sisi's Militarized Urbanism Is Remaking Egypt
Sisi's regime has securitized public spaces and built mass surveillance into urban planning in a quest to turn Egypt into the “perfect military camp.”
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Hidden Cities @hidden-cities.com · 22/05/2026
“During the revolution, millions prophetically chanted: Yasquṭ yasquṭ ḥukm al-ʿaskar! Maṣr dawla miš muʿaskar! (Down with military rule! Egypt is a state, not a [military] camp!)” “Today, Sisi is turning the country literally into one large military camp,” @barracks.substack.com writes.
hidden-cities.com
How Sisi's Militarized Urbanism Is Remaking Egypt
Sisi's regime has securitized public spaces and built mass surveillance into urban planning in a quest to turn Egypt into the “perfect military camp.”
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
New in @hidden-cities.com: Hossam el-Hamalawy @barracks.substack.com on Sisi's vision of turning Egypt into one vast military camp, from the fortified new capital outside Cairo to an entire urban landscape shaped by mass surveillance and control. www.hidden-cities.com/p/how-sisis-...
hidden-cities.com
How Sisi's Militarized Urbanism Is Remaking Egypt
Sisi's regime has securitized public spaces and built mass surveillance into urban planning in a quest to turn Egypt into the “perfect military camp.”
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Hidden Cities @hidden-cities.com · 14/05/2026
Subscribe to @hiddencitiesmag to support our writers and get everything we publish in your inbox, including new poetry. www.hidden-cities.com/p/ritaj-riha...
hidden-cities.com
'Ritaj Rihan': A New Poem on Gaza
She went on her own two feet / and she came back to me on a stretcher.
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Hidden Cities @hidden-cities.com · 14/05/2026
A new poem by Vaheed Ramazani, on the wrenching reality in Gaza under a “ceasefire” that is no such thing for Palestinians, including children. “She went on her own two feet / and she came back to me on a stretcher.”
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Hidden Cities @hidden-cities.com · 09/05/2026
“That is what is meant by the quiet violence of intellectual distance. It is not ignorance. It is the capacity to witness suffering in real time and postpone response until it becomes politically convenient to respond… Hamid did not have that option.” www.hidden-cities.com/p/hamid-khal...
hidden-cities.com
Hamid Khalafallah Refused Selective Outrage
On the life and work of a young Sudanese scholar who never stopped demanding attention for his people.
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Hidden Cities @hidden-cities.com · 09/05/2026
“Some conflicts arrive pre-packaged with a clear villain and a recognizable frame. They require nothing from us except the willingness to be angry. Others have fragmented perpetrators, unfamiliar histories, no ready-made alliance of condemnation. They ask more. So they receive less.”
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
"He kept speaking even when it felt like no one was listening—not because it was effective in the way he deserved, but because silence was not something he was willing to offer his people." On the life and radical work of Sudanese scholar Hamid Khalafallah: www.hidden-cities.com/p/hamid-khal...
hidden-cities.com
Hamid Khalafallah Refused Selective Outrage
On the life and work of a young Sudanese scholar who never stopped demanding attention for his people.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
"The same people who did the killing and financed the killing and justified the killing and turned away from the killing will congratulate themselves on doing the right thing." Omar El Akkad in @hidden-cities.com: www.hidden-cities.com/p/omar-el-ak...
hidden-cities.com
Omar El Akkad: 'One Day There Will Be No More Looking Away.'
It is a disorienting thing, to keep a ledger of atrocity, to write the ugliness of each day as it happens.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
"There will be those who say it was all the work of a few bad actors, people who misled the rest of us well-meaning folks. Anything to avoid contending with the possibility that all this killing wasn’t the result of a system abused, but a system functioning exactly as intended." -Omar El Akkad
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Hidden Cities @hidden-cities.com · 29/04/2026
“At its core, whether it’s ballistic missiles, exoatmospheric interceptors, or rockets that launch satellites—or astronauts—into space, the technology is the same. But it’s a world away,” Hagai El-Ad writes. www.hidden-cities.com/p/looking-to...
hidden-cities.com
Looking to Space for a Glimmer of Hope and Solidarity
Amid a regional war with planet-wide consequences, the Artemis II mission managed to capture a fleeting global moment infused with rare optimism.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
"The first launch I ever got to see was not for peaceful purposes; it was part of a war." Hagai El-Ad in @hidden-cities.com on looking to space for optimism amid so much war, and why the Artemis II mission was an antidote to Trumpism: www.hidden-cities.com/p/looking-to...
hidden-cities.com
Looking to Space for a Glimmer of Hope and Solidarity
Amid a regional war with planet-wide consequences, the Artemis II mission managed to capture a fleeting global moment infused with rare optimism.
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Hidden Cities @hidden-cities.com · 20/04/2026
“It was therefore inevitable that what applied in Palestine would also apply in the Levant and beyond.” Amal Ghandour on Israel’s latest war on Lebanon and the destruction wrought across the region: www.hidden-cities.com/p/a-ledger-o...
hidden-cities.com
A Ledger of Destruction, From One War to Another
It was inevitable that what applied in Palestine would also apply in the Levant and beyond.
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