Anna Badkhen is a writer and essayist who has spent most of her life in the Global South. Her books include Fisherman’s Blues: A West African Community at Sea, Walking with Abel: Journeys with the Nomads of the African Savannah, and Peace Meals: Candy-Wrapped Kalashnikovs and Other War Stories. Anna is the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Barry Lopez Visiting Writer in Ethics and Community Fellowship, and the Joel R. Seldin Award from Psychologists for Social Responsibility, among others. She has written about a dozen wars on three continents. Her writing has appeared in The New York Review of Books, Granta, The Common, Scalawag, Guernica, The Paris Review, and The New York Times. Badkhen is a contributing editor to Mānoa Journal.
Impermanence and Eternity on a Weeklong Walk in the Sahara
Anna Badkhen the Emergence Magazine Podcast
Emergence Magazine is a quarterly online publication exploring the threads connecting ecology, culture, and spirituality. As we experience the desecration of our lands and waters, the extinguishing of species, and a loss of sacred connection to the Earth, we look to emerging stories. Each issue explores a theme through innovative digital media, as well as the written and spoken word. The Emergence Magazine podcast features exclusive interviews, narrated essays, stories, and more.
In this narrated essay, Anna Badkhen embarks on a weeklong journey across the Sahara desert, tracing the ancient route that pilgrims once caravanned from the Atlantic coast to Mecca. Along the way, she contemplates human movement across shifting landscapes, the impermanence of memory, and what remains eternal in the face of erasure.
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Listen to the rest of this story on Emergence Magazine’s website or by subscribing to the podcast.
Emergence Magazine
Emergence Magazine is an online publication with annual print edition exploring the threads connecting ecology, culture, and spirituality. As we experience the desecration of our lands and waters, the extinguishing of species, and a loss of sacred connection to the Earth, we look to emerging stories. Our podcast features exclusive interviews, narrated essays, stories and more.
