To the extent that we are all the sum total of our wider experience and our private moments, imagine how that might be magnified amidst the terror, turmoil, and violence of Middle East.

A place where even the quiet moments of love, life and even pain are amplified by events in the present and memories of the past.

Mai Al-Nakib’s stories in her collection The Hidden Light of Objects, takes us into the lives of people in the crucible of conflict who hang on to extraordinary memories.

My conversation with Mai Al-Nakib: