What does the world look like from a SWANA (South West Asia and North Africa) futurist perspective? Author and artist Kristin Anahit Cass explores this question in her debut book Reparations of the Heart: Toward a SWANA Futurity published by fifth wheel press, a vibrant tapestry of essays, stories, poems, quotes, and detailed, often surreal images.
Reparations of the Heart rejects the imperialist narratives and hopelessness that loom around us, instead proposing an alternative future where creativity, culture, and community flourish. Moving from past to present and into the future, memories of beloved ancestors inform various artistic iterations of SWANA futurity, as narrated by the vast diversity of their photographic subjects.
Divided into three parts, this book crosses time and borders. Ancestors connects us to our past, building on the wisdom of our ancestors and infusing it with a greater openness and liberation for all people. The Republic of My Imagination situates us in a difficult but hopeful present where we create community, encouraging healing and hope through solidarity and mutual support. A Planet of Our Own launches us into an alternative future world where kindness and compassion are core values, replacing the oppression and colonialism of the present.
Reparations of the Heart: Toward a SWANA Futurity offers Cass’ unique perspective as an Armenian elder. Her long experience as a mother, activist, writer, and artist infuses the book with a unique perspective on envisioning the future to build a compassionate and inclusive world, holding compassion as a core value, respecting a spectrum of identities, and ways to love and live in the world.
Reparations of the Heart was inspired by the aftermath of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, and was written in the midst of the recent genocide in Artsakh, and the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The wounds of these atrocities are felt on its pages, but against all odds it insists that change is possible. This profound book imagines the future and envisions creating it, encompassing land back, reparations, ethnic and cultural diversity, ancestral practices, and shared SWANA culture.