50.2 Feature: “Close to the Slaughterhouse” by 2023 Nonfiction Contest Winner, Nadine Monem
Nadine Monem is an Egyptian-Canadian writer and editor. She graduated with an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from Birkbeck (University of London) in 2021, and since then her work has been published or supported by Tin House, The Kenyon Review, Catapult Books, The Seventh Wave magazine, and The Literary Consultancy. She is currently working on her first book (a work of speculative auto-theory), excerpts of which have won the Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize (2022) and have been shortlisted for both the Sewanee Review Nonfiction Prize (2021) and the Gulf Coast Nonfiction Prize (2023). Nadine lives and works in London, UK, and teaches cultural studies and criticism at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.
In the words of our 2023 Nonfiction Contest judge, Jesse McCarthy, Nadine Monem’s “Close to the Slaughterhouse” is a profound exploration of a familiar yet deeply impactful theme, brought into the contemporary limelight with clarity and thoughtfulness.
McCarthy praised Monem’s work for embodying the best qualities of great essays: “A good essay will have two or more memorable sentences. A great essay has at least as many, but also that further thing that is so hard to define: a fully realized vision that has seen what it wanted to see; a mind that, in the spirit of the form, roams and seeks but also remains disciplined, ever weighing the balance between perception and understanding, always refusing sentimentality, always leaving the reader with gifts that are implied and not extracted. ‘Close to the Slaughterhouse’ takes on an old and familiar subject but makes it effortlessly part of our collective present tense, at once immediate and universal. The nub of hard-won lucidity is palpable in every line.”
Read the full text of “Close to the Slaughterhouse” by clicking on the excerpt below, and experience the power of Nadine Monem’s storytelling firsthand.
To read Nadine Monem’s work & our other 2023 contest winners in print, grab yourself a copy of our most recent issue, 50.2. And if you’re looking to submit to our 2024 Nonfiction Contest, judged by Rajiv Mohabir, find us on Submittable to learn about our contest guidelines, deadlines, and more.