06: BODIES — unootha

AUGUST 2019: ISSUE 06

unootha cover issue 06.png — issue 06: bodies

Our sixth issue features of a body of incredibly vulnerable, incredibly honest, and incredibly beautiful work. From our region’s debilitating beauty standards to notions of sexuality, Unootha’s Bodies issues uncovers it all.
August 2019’s issue also marks one year of Unootha. Happy birthday, Unootha. Oh, the places you’ll go.

A Letter from the Editor

Although it’s been exactly a year since the day I had (tentatively) pressed publish to Unootha’s first issue, most of the emotions that had consumed me then continue pervade right now: a lot of anxiousness but also a deep appreciation for the women whose work and creativity allow these issues to exist in the first place.

But this day also brings about another emotion, that of serendipity. It feels terribly serendipitous for the Bodies issue to mark our platform’s first year when it was my own body that had led me to Unootha in the first place.

During my recovery from an eating disorder in early 2018, I found solace in reading stories of women and girls in recovery as well, but struggled to find the stories of Arab women who had experienced the same trauma. I couldn’t find any stories that I completely connected with, stories that were like my own.

During the past year, that inability to find a connection gave me a goal for what I hoped this magazine would symbolize to others. And so, with this issue, with this magazine, I hope that you are able to find solace, that you are able to find a connection, that you are able to read stories about bodies and tongues like your own, that you are able to tell your own story.

Here’s to many more years guided by the storytelling and untamable creative spirits of MENA women.

With love,

Fatima