Diary of an Imaginary Egyptian
Errant Bodies Press, Berlin, 2012

Diary of an Imaginary Egyptian is marked by an urgency to unsettle divides, both imaginary and physical, between west and east, Anglo and Arab, and to put into question dominant modes of political being. Written between February and June of 2011, the Diary functioned as a daily consideration of the intensity of events erupting around the world. Author and artist Brandon LaBelle sought to engage these events by way of a diary of affiliation and reciprocation in which personal memories and cultural reflections search for remote connection, in particular, with the Arab Spring. This five-month period acts as a platform from which questions around US imperialism, art and revolution, the task of writing, and the possibility of new political subjectivity are raised. LaBelle asks for an “agency of the intimate,” outlining a tender map of the transnational.