Impermanence and Eternity on a Weeklong Walk in the Sahara

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.