In this conversation recorded at the 26th Sharjah International Narrator Forum, Linda reflects on what it means for Finland to be honoured at one of the Arab world's most prestigious storytelling gatherings — and what Finnish tales carry within them that the world needs to hear right now.

From ancient sagas to fireside folklore, Linda explores the timeless art of gathering around a story and letting it do what only stories can: connect us, heal us, and remind us that we were never really strangers.

Recorded at the 26th Sharjah International Narrator Forum (SINF 2026), Sharjah, UAE.

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 And then there's Zoumba — who keeps coming back, because Sharjah keeps calling.

In this special episode of Al-Rawi, we sit with Pape Samba Sow, known to the world as Zoumba, Storyteller from Senegal, on the occasion of his seventh consecutive appearance at the Sharjah International Narrator Forum — this time for SINF 2026, under the theme "Stories of Friends."

Zoumba is not just a storyteller. He is a UNESCO Prize laureate, having won the UNESCO-Sharjah Prize for Best International Storyteller in 2022 — one of the most prestigious recognitions in the world of oral heritage. He was also named a Living Human Treasure, a designation that honors those who carry irreplaceable intangible cultural knowledge and pass it on to future generations. For Senegal, for West Africa, and for the global storytelling community, Zoumba is a living institution.

We ask him what it feels like to return to Sharjah after that extraordinary recognition — does the stage feel different? Does he carry it differently? We explore the meaning of coming back, year after year, to a place that has witnessed his growth and his victories.

And in a moment of quiet reflection, Zoumba shares with us the single most powerful moment of human connection he has ever experienced through a story — that instant where a tale transcends language, culture, and distance, and touches something universal in us all.

From the banks of the Senegal River to the heart of Sharjah — this is the story of a man who has made storytelling his life's sacred work.

Recorded at the 26th Sharjah International Narrator Forum (SINF 2026), Sharjah, UAE.

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Sanith is no stranger to SINF — this is a return visit to the forum where he has become a beloved and respected presence, having made history as one of the youngest storytellers ever to grace its stage. We talk about what it means to come back, what has changed, and what continues to drive him.

Born in Sri Lanka and raised in the UAE for over a decade and a half, Sanith carries two homelands in his heart — and his storytelling is where they meet. He opens up about what it means to hold that dual identity, how both cultures fuel his creativity, and the responsibility he feels as a bridge between worlds.

He also takes us behind the scenes of his remarkable journey: how a young student pursuing AS levels in Psychology, Biology and Mathematics still finds the time — and the fire — to write, publish, and perform. With six books already to his name and more on the way, Sanith is redefining what it means to be young and prolific.

And with all of that, he leaves us with a heartfelt message to young storytellers everywhere who dare to believe their voice matters.

This is a conversation about ambition, identity, and the beautiful courage it takes to tell your story — at any age.

Recorded at the 26th Sharjah International Narrator Forum (SINF 2026), Sharjah, UAE.

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Denis takes us back to the rural landscapes of his mother upbringing, sharing how her village childhood shaped her voice as a storyteller and formed the emotional core of her work. 

He speaks openly about his creative partnership with his mother, how their collaboration breathes life into stories that are deeply personal yet universally felt.

But perhaps most poignantly, he speaks about his mission to preserve the Komi-Permyak language — an indigenous tongue of Russia that carries within it an entire world of memory, identity, and ancestral wisdom. 

A conversation about roots, responsibility, and the quiet power of a story told in your mother tongue.

Recorded at the 26th Sharjah International Narrator Forum (SINF 2026), Sharjah, UAE.

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Fabio Lisboa is a professional storyteller from Brazil, who has performed and taught the art of oral storytelling across Brazil, Canada and the United States — taking the stories of his culture and sharing them with audiences around the world who had never heard anything quite like them before.

In this conversation, Alya and Fabio talk about:

— What it means to be a storyteller in Brazil — a country whose culture is so deeply rooted in oral tradition, in music, in rhythm, in community — and how that shapes the way Fabio approaches his craft.

— How Fabio first discovered storytelling as his path, and what it felt like the first time he stood in front of an audience and realised that a story told aloud could change the energy in a room entirely.

— The kinds of stories Fabio tells — Brazilian folklore, oral history, community tales — and what it is like to carry those stories far from home and share them with audiences in other countries and other cultures.

— What happens when a story crosses a cultural border — when something deeply Brazilian lands in a room full of people who have never been to Brazil and know nothing of its folklore — and why, despite everything, it still connects.

— The difference between reading a story and hearing one — and why Fabio believes the human voice is still the most powerful storytelling tool that has ever existed.

— What brings him to Al-Rawi, and what he hopes to take back to Brazil from this gathering of storytellers from 28 countries.

An energetic, joyful and deeply moving conversation to close Day One — because if there is one guest who embodies everything Al-Rawi stands for, it is a man who crossed the world to share his stories with strangers. And made them feel like friends.

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Maria Pakkala is a researcher and literary translator from Finland, specialising in translating Arabic literature into Finnish. She holds a PhD, has taught Arabic, and has written extensively on the relationship between Arabic and Finnish literary worlds — making her one of the most unique voices at this year's festival.

In this conversation, Alya and Maria discuss:

— What first drew Maria — a Finnish academic — to the Arabic language and its literature, and the journey that led her from studying Arabic to translating it for Finnish readers.

— What it actually means to translate a piece of literature. Not just the words — but the culture, the rhythm, the emotion, the things that live between the lines of an Arabic text and need to cross into an entirely different language and world.

— The challenges and joys of translating Arabic poetry and prose into Finnish — two languages that could not be more structurally different — and how a translator bridges that gap without losing the soul of the original.

— Which Arabic works Maria has translated, and what Finnish readers have responded to most strongly when encountering Arabic literature for the first time through her translations.

— The role of literary translation in keeping oral and written traditions alive across borders — and why the act of translation is itself a form of storytelling preservation.

— What this moment — being at Al-Rawi in Sharjah, as part of Finland's guest of honour delegation — means to her personally and professionally.

A conversation about language, love for words, and what happens when a Finnish woman sits with Arabic poetry and decides the world needs to hear it in her language too.

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Joining Alya live at the festival is Dr. Niina Hämäläinen, a researcher at the University of Helsinki and a specialist at the Kalevala Society in Finland — this year's guest of honour at Al-Rawi.

In this conversation, Alya and Dr. Niina explore the world of Finnish oral tradition, including:

— What is the Kalevala, and why is it considered Finland's national soul? Dr. Niina explains how this extraordinary collection of ancient oral poetry was gathered from folk singers and storytellers across Finland and compiled into one of the most important literary works in the world.

— How oral poetry and storytelling have been kept alive in Finnish culture across centuries, and what role institutions like the Kalevala Society play in preserving this living heritage today.

— The connection between Finnish and Arab oral traditions — two worlds that seem far apart but share the same deep belief: that a story told aloud carries something no written word can fully replace.

— What it means to Finland to be the guest of honour at Al-Rawi, and what this cultural exchange between the Nordic world and the Arab world represents for global storytelling heritage.

— Dr. Niina's personal journey into the study of oral tradition, and what drew her to devote her life's work to understanding the stories people told before anyone wrote anything down.

A beautiful, warm and deeply illuminating conversation — recorded live at the heart of one of the most important cultural festivals in the region.

This year's Al-Rawi theme is "Tales of Friends" — and this episode is proof that friendship between cultures begins with a story.

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In today's The Thinking Room on Espresso Hour, we sit with one of the most extraordinary acts of human intelligence ever written into myth: Scheherazade. The woman at the heart of One Thousand and One Nights — Alf Layla wa Layla — who faced a king so consumed by betrayal and rage that he had made a ritual of executing every new bride by morning. And yet Scheherazade walked in anyway. Not with a weapon, not with an escape plan — but with a story.

What she understood, in a way that still feels radical today, is that narrative is power. That a story left unfinished creates a hunger in the listener that is stronger than hatred, stronger than grief, and — in her case — stronger than a death sentence. Night after night, tale within tale, a merchant and a genie, a fisherman and a king, Ali Baba, Sinbad, Aladdin — she spun a world so alive that the man holding her life in his hands chose, again and again, to let her keep living just to see where it went.

But we go deeper than the fairy tale today. We ask what 1001 Nights is really telling us — about the relationship between storyteller and audience, about the way women have historically used wit and art where they were denied force, about why human beings are so fundamentally wired to need a story to continue. Scheherazade didn't just save herself. She gave us a timeless blueprint for the most powerful thing a person can do in a room where they have no power: open their mouth and begin. ☕📖

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In today's Vital Spark segment on Espresso Hour, we get into the cold, hard truth about ice therapy for the face. We break down the real science behind what happens to your skin when it's exposed to cold temperatures — how blood vessels constrict and then dilate to push circulation, what that actually means for puffiness and inflammation, and whether cold exposure can genuinely tighten the appearance of pores or if that's a myth we've all just agreed to believe.

We also look at who benefits from it, who should probably avoid it, and the right way to do it if you're going to try it — because yes, there is a wrong way to rub ice on your face.

Cool skincare or cold comfort? We break it all down — one cube at a time. ☕❄️

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In today's The Thinking Room on Espresso Hour, we open up this deceptively simple story and look at what's really hiding beneath the surface. Because this was never truly a children's book. It's a meditation on the loneliness that creeps in when we grow up and stop asking the right questions. It's about love — not the romantic, cinematic kind, but the kind that costs you something. It's about loss, and how the things that matter most are invisible to the eye. It's about the fox, the rose, the well, and a grown-up world so consumed by numbers and seriousness that it has completely forgotten how to see.

Saint-Exupéry wrote this in exile, separated from his homeland, in the final years before his death — and every page carries the weight of a man trying to hold on to something the world kept asking him to let go of.

We ask today: what did you understand about this book as a child — and what does it mean to you now? ☕
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In today's Vital Spark segment on Espresso Hour, we break down exactly what's going on inside your body during those mysterious middle-of-the-night wake-ups. From the science of sleep cycles and REM stages to cortisol spikes, blood sugar dips, and the role your nervous system plays — your body isn't just randomly waking you up. It's sending you a message.

We unpack what different wake-up patterns could mean for your health, your stress levels, and your daily habits — and what small changes you can make to finally sleep through the night.

Your morning just got a whole lot more eye-opening. ☕

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William Shakespeare. And today — his sonnets.

Shakespeare wrote one hundred and fifty four love poems over the course of his life. One hundred and fifty four small, perfectly constructed worlds of feeling — each one fourteen lines long, each one a masterclass in saying the unsayable. And out of all one hundred and fifty four — there is one that rises above everything else. One that gets read at weddings and quoted in letters and whispered between people who cannot find their own words for what they feel. One that has been translated into virtually every language on earth and has never — not once in four hundred years — lost a single drop of its power.

Sonnet 116.

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds."

In this segment, we read Sonnet 116 in its entirety — and then we break it down, line by line, the way it deserves to be broken down. Because this is not just a romantic poem. It is a definition. Shakespeare sat down and decided — I am going to tell the world exactly what love is. Not what it feels like in the beginning. Not how it starts. What it actually IS. At its deepest, most enduring, most uncompromising level.

He tells us that real love does not change when circumstances change. That it does not walk away when the going gets hard. That it is an ever-fixed mark — a lighthouse — that stands completely still while the storm rages around it. That it is the North Star to every lost ship at sea. That it does not answer to time, does not bow to age, does not fade with the passing of years. And that it endures — bears it out — all the way to the very edge of existence.

And then — the most audacious closing of any poem ever written. Shakespeare stakes his entire legacy — four hundred years of being the greatest writer in the English language — on the truth of what he just said. If I am wrong about love, he says, then I never wrote a single word. And no man has ever truly loved.

We also explore the world of Shakespeare's other sonnets — from the tender vulnerability of Sonnet 29 to the raw, feverish darkness of Sonnet 147 — painting a full picture of a man who understood love in all its forms. The beautiful, the obsessive, the transcendent and the completely undone.

Four hundred years old. And somehow — still the most accurate thing anyone has ever said about what the heart wants.

This is The Thinking Room on Espresso Hour — where great stories, great minds and great literature come to life on your radio. Tune in Monday through Thursday, 11AM to 12PM, only on Pulse 95.

Her name is Elizabeth Bennet. And the woman who created her — Jane Austen — is about to turn the entire world of her time completely upside down.

Pride and Prejudice. Published in 1813. One of the most beloved, most read, most adapted novels in the history of the written word. And one of the most misunderstood. Because most people hear the words — Regency England, ballgowns, a wealthy man on horseback — and think romance. Think fantasy. Think a simple love story between a girl and a man with a very impressive estate.

But Pride and Prejudice is so much more than that. It is sharp. It is furious. It is one of the most quietly radical things ever written about women, society, self-worth and the absolute absurdity of a world that reduced an entire gender to a single question — who will she marry?

In this segment, we step into the world Jane Austen built and explore what she was really saying beneath every witty line and every carefully choreographed ballroom scene. We talk about Elizabeth Bennet — a woman ahead of her time by at least two centuries — who refused to shrink, refused to perform and refused to be loved as anyone's reluctant second choice. We talk about Mr. Darcy — one of the most complex and misread romantic heroes in all of fiction — and the extraordinary moment when his pride finally meets something it cannot overcome. We explore what Austen herself sacrificed to write this novel — and why a woman who never married left behind the most honest, most enduring love story in the English language.

And we sit with the question that Pride and Prejudice has been asking its readers for over two hundred years — what does it actually mean to be truly seen by another person? Not for what you represent, not for what you offer, not for the family you come from or the money you bring — but for exactly, precisely, completely who you are?

Jane Austen answered that question in 1813. And somehow — two hundred and thirteen years later — we are still reading her answer and finding something new in it every single time.

This is The Thinking Room on Espresso Hour — where great stories, great minds and great literature come to life on your radio. Tune in Monday through Thursday, 11AM to 12PM, only on Pulse 95.

So what are they doing? What do they know that the rest of us don't?

In this segment, we go deep into Finnish culture and the specific daily habits, values and ways of living that have made this quiet, cold, extraordinary nation at the top of the world the gold standard of human happiness. And what we find is not what most people expect. There are no grand gestures here. No extravagant lifestyles. No performance of success or happiness for the outside world. What Finland has — is something far more rare and far more valuable than any of that.

We explore their deep, almost sacred relationship with nature — and the legal right every Finnish citizen has to roam freely across any forest, any lake, any land in the country regardless of who owns it. We talk about their profound cultural resistance to excess and the quiet satisfaction they find in simplicity, in things that work beautifully without showing off. We discuss their extraordinary relationship with silence — and why in Finland, silence between two people is not awkward or cold but one of the deepest expressions of comfort and trust that exists.

We step into the sauna — which is not a luxury in Finland but a daily ritual of physical and emotional cleansing so deeply embedded in the culture that there are approximately three million saunas for a population of five and a half million people. And we talk about trust — the invisible, foundational ingredient of Finnish happiness that researchers consistently identify as one of the most powerful contributors to human wellbeing ever measured.

Dark winters. Forests. Silence. Saunas. Simplicity. And the happiest people on earth.

Maybe happiness was never about more. Maybe it was always about enough.

This is Within Cultures on Espresso Hour — where every episode takes you somewhere in the world that has something to teach us. Tune in Monday through Thursday, 11AM to 12PM, only on Pulse 95.

Most people know Kafka for his darkness. For The Metamorphosis — the story of a man who wakes up transformed into a giant insect. For The Trial. For The Castle. For the word Kafkaesque — which the world now uses to describe situations so absurd and suffocating they feel like a nightmare you cannot wake from. That is the Kafka the world knows.

But behind every dark corridor and every tortured protagonist he ever put on a page — was a man who wanted, more than almost anything else in his life, to love and be loved. Completely. Without reservation. And who had absolutely no idea how to do it.

In this segment, we tell the story of Kafka and Felice Bauer — a woman he met at a dinner party for one single evening, who then went home to Berlin while he returned to his desk in Prague. And what followed was one of the most extraordinary correspondences in literary history. Over five hundred letters. Written almost every single day. Sometimes twice a day. Pages and pages poured out in the middle of the night — full of longing, full of brilliance, full of contradiction. A man confessing his love in one breath and warning her away from him in the very next.

We also explore his devastating letters to Milena Jesenská — the woman who drew from him perhaps the most raw and honest words he ever wrote. Including the line that stops everyone who reads it completely cold —

"You are the knife I turn inside myself. That is love. That, my dear, is love."

Two women. Over five hundred letters. Two broken engagements. A man who asked his best friend to burn every word he ever wrote after he died. And a best friend who did not burn a single page — giving the world Kafka. Completely and forever.

This is The Thinking Room on Espresso Hour — where great stories, great minds and great literature come to life on your radio. Tune in Monday through Thursday, 11AM to 12PM, only on Pulse 95.

This is the story of Edmond Dantès. A young man of nineteen — bright, hardworking, deeply in love and on the verge of the most perfect life imaginable. And then — in the space of a single day — three men driven by jealousy and greed take everything from him. His freedom. His future. The woman he loves. His entire world. He is thrown into the Château d'If — a fortress prison on an island in the middle of the sea — and forgotten.

He sits there for fourteen years.

And what he does with those fourteen years — how he transforms, prepares, educates himself and quietly, patiently builds the most extraordinary plan in all of literature — is the beating heart of this story. Not just as a tale of revenge. But as one of the most powerful lessons ever written about the extraordinary human ability to wait. To endure. To refuse to be destroyed by what was done to you — and instead, to let time work in your favour.

In this segment, we walk through the story of Edmond Dantès from his darkest moment to his most triumphant. We talk about the friendship that changed everything inside that prison. The treasure that gave him his new identity. And the line at the very end of the novel that contains — according to Dumas himself — all the wisdom a human being will ever need.

"All human wisdom is contained in these two words — wait and hope."

This is The Thinking Room on Espresso Hour — where great stories, great minds and great literature come to life on your radio. Tune in Monday through Thursday, 11AM to 12PM, only on Pulse 95.

In this segment, we travel back to Heian Period Japan — around 1,000 years ago — where the women of the Japanese imperial court were famous across the entire country for their extraordinary floor-length, deeply glossy and incredibly strong hair. Their secret was not an expensive product or a complicated treatment. It was rice water. A tradition that spread across Asia and eventually reached the Yao women of Huangluo village in China — known as the longest haired women in the world — whose hair averaging almost two metres in length drew scientists from around the world to study them. And what did those scientists find? Rice water. Every single time.

We break down exactly what rice water does to the hair scientifically — from the remarkable carbohydrate inositol that repairs hair from the inside out, to the vitamins, minerals and amino acids that strengthen each strand and add that deep, mirror-like shine. And most importantly — we tell you exactly how to make it, how to use it, and how to take it to the next level with fermentation for even more powerful results.

Simple. Ancient. Completely free. And backed by a thousand years of women who knew exactly what they were doing.

This is Style Signal on Espresso Hour — where beauty meets real knowledge, every single day. Tune in Monday through Thursday, 11AM to 12PM, only on Pulse 95.

On the surface, Sweeney Todd is the story of a barber. A man with a razor, a chair, and a shop on Fleet Street in Victorian London. But beneath that surface — it is one of the most powerful stories ever told about injustice, obsession, revenge and what happens to a human being when grief and rage are left to fester for too long with nowhere to go.

In this segment, we explore the story of Benjamin Barker — a man wrongly transported to prison by a corrupt judge who wanted his wife and his life for himself. He returns to London years later, a changed man, a broken man, carrying a darkness so deep it has consumed everything that was once good in him. He takes back his razors. He takes back his name. And he becomes — Sweeney Todd.

We also explore the genius of Stephen Sondheim — the man who took a Victorian penny dreadful tale and transformed it into a Broadway masterpiece that has shaken audiences to their core for decades. His music is not background. It is character. It is emotion. It is the inside of a human mind laid completely bare.

This is The Thinking Room on Espresso Hour — where great stories, great minds and great art come to life on your radio. Tune in Monday through Thursday, 11AM to 12PM, only on Pulse 95.

Before Poe, mystery was superstition. It was passed around campfires and whispered in village squares. It had no structure, no logic, no method. And then — Poe arrived. And everything changed.

In this segment, we explore who Edgar Allan Poe really was beyond the darkness he is famous for. A man of extraordinary intelligence and devastating personal tragedy, who used the written word to process a life full of loss, poverty and pain — and in doing so, gave the world some of the most enduring stories and poems ever put on paper. From The Raven to The Tell-Tale Heart to the birth of the very first fictional detective in history — this is the story of a man who looked into the darkness and found a genre waiting there.

This is The Thinking Room on Espresso Hour — where great stories, great minds and great literature come to life on your radio. Tune in Monday through Thursday, 11AM to 12PM, only on Pulse 95.