Portraits

Sophie Bessis, a specialist in North-South relations and the status of women in Africa and the Arab world, is Franco-Tunisian and lives between Paris and Carthage. She is the author of numerous books, including Arabs, Women, and Freedom (Albin Michel, 2007), The West and the Rest (La Découverte, 2000), and A History of Tunisia from Carthage to the Present Day (Tallandier, 2019). Across geopolitical issues, particularly those concerning the Middle East, and those related to feminism, she continues to offer a critical, intelligent, and insightful perspective on the world around us. An interview.

The 26-year-old Swiss writer of Tunisian origin Raja Sabta el-Amri has launched a children’s book series titled Mom, Dad, Can We Talk About, which addresses social and educational issues. The first book in the series, published in spring 2025, is titled What Is Consent? and is available in three languages (Tunisian colloquial Arabic, French, and English), and also in Braille. There are also a sign language version and an audio version. It targets children as young as four. An interview.

Cihan Bilgin’s journey in journalism started in the streets of Amed (Diyarbakir) as a “little general of Apê Musa,” in reference to Musa Anter, a Kurdish writer, journalist, and intellectual who was assassinated by the Turkish Gendarmerie Intelligence Organization, JITEM, in September 1992. Bilgin was on the ground in northeastern Syria, covering the women’s revolution there.

Margarita Bareikyte is a filmmaker whose latest work, It’s All About Jazz, touches on the struggles foreigners face when trying to find work in Italy. I met Maggie by chance at a birthday party in the north of Rome and was able to speak to her about the premise of her film, all too familiar to foreigners like us two. An interview.

Tesh Sidi is a politician, computer engineer, Big Data expert, and social policy content disseminator born in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria. A holder of Spanish nationality as well, Sidi’s influences stem from Arab and Muslim values as well as Western culture, a diversity that has strengthened her commitment to activism and inclusion in her work and life more generally. An interview.

Marianne Chbat, Canadian of Lebanese-Egyptian origin, has a PhD in applied human sciences from the University of Montreal. Her field of expertise is LGBTQ migrants, mainly from the Middle East. The young woman was one of the speakers at the “Transnational Solidarities and Global Queer Policies” conference recently held in Tunis. Below is an interview we did with her during the event.

Hela Ouardi, Professor of French literature and civilization at the University of Tunis, and associate researcher of the CNRS Laboratory for Studies on Monotheisms, continues a process of reflection initiated over the course of her works in which she deconstructs a myriad of myths related to the first period of Islam.

Except in the eyes of those who downgrade women in society and look at icons among them as bodies that must be covered, Ons Jabeur is the pride of so many Tunisians and a true success story that can inspire hundreds of others…

“To me, Jenin is not a one ephemeral story in my career or even in my personal life. It is the city that can raise my morale and help me fly. It embodies the Palestinian spirit that sometimes trembles and falls but, beyond all expectations, rises to pursue its flights and dreams.”

The assassination of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh by Israeli forces in Jenin while covering an Israeli raid, has sparked an unparalleled wave of outrage, while an immeasurable crowd of Palestinians thronged to her funeral. From Tunis to Beirut, the journalists of Medfeminiswiya also tell of their emotion at learning the news.