We are happy to announce The Elephant, a new issue of the Non-Fiction journal guest edited by Elhum Shakerifar.

Non-Fiction 07: The Elephant includes contributions by Barby Asante, Emma Cheung, Jenny Clarke, Abiba Coulibaly, Melek Erdal, Mouna Kasa, Helene Kazan, So Mayer, Momtaza Mehri, Golrokh Nafisi, JC Niala and Mika Ōgai.

You can read the full issue here.

*Please note that this issue has interactive elements best navigated via a desktop

“A few weeks ago, writer and translator Yasmine Seale suggested that I think about my translations as words overheard, as if a fleeting, serendipitous encounter. This felt refreshing, even liberating—the idea of translating between languages, of doing justice to a text is a heavy responsibility—even at times, a weight. But the lightness of the suggestion betrays its poise and perceptiveness. A reminder of sorts that there is no such thing as fixity, that certainty, too, is short-lived, passing.

When I was invited to guest edit this edition of Non-Fiction Journal, my thoughts immediately turned to the poetry that has long provided compass and solace for my work in the creative space—as a translator, as a poet, and as a film producer and curator. These hats might appear to be very different, but they are all facets of the same kind of quest, I feel—leaps of faith, questions posed to a world in constant flux. I understand documentary to be a process of translation in time, ideas, energies. Long before being a one of my ‘jobs’, translation was the prism through which I—like all migrant children—saw the world. It carries ambivalence and ambiguity close, a perpetual process opening and closing the possibility of holding several truths at once.”

You can read Elhum Shakerifar’s full introduction here.

Non-Fiction is a journal from Open City Documentary Festival. The publication was launched in 2020 with the aim to create a space for considered, critical and creative writing on non-fiction, featuring contributions offered in response to moving image, audio or cross-media, both contemporary and historical. The first two issues (#1 Power and #2 Network) were edited by Matt Turner and published in print form. In 2021, Non-Fiction moved online in order to be more widely accessible. We aim to publish two issues a year, each edited by a different guest editor.

Non-Fiction #3 The Living Journal is edited by Olivier Marboeuf and Ana Vaz and was published in September 2021.

Non-Fiction #4 Peculiar Forms is edited by Aily Nash and was published in June 2022

Non-Fiction #5 The Obsolete and The Resurrected is edited by Pan Lu and Bo Wang and was published in February 2023

Non-Fiction #6 Inscriptions is edited by Henrietta Williams as a collaboration between Open City Documentary Festival and was published in November 2023.

Non-Fiction #7 The Elephant is edited by Elhum Shakerifar and was published in January 2025.