A Rejection Letter from Dabiq, the official journal of the Islamic State
Dear Mr. Singh,
Thank you for giving us a chance to consider your fiction submission, ‘The Lonely Acacia Tree’. We usually burn fiction submissions on receipt, but the illustration of the Kurd hung from aforementioned tree piqued our interest.
After close review, however, we are sorry to inform you that we will not be able to use it in the upcoming issue of Dabiq. The character’s progression through her main arc is satisfying and fluent, but the metaphor of the tree fails to significantly explain her need to overcome her fear of public speaking. Does the figure of the tree standing alone give her the strength to also stand alone, in public, while speaking? Or does the sight of the lonely tree make her feel that an existence so disconnected and perfunctory might not be worth living? Does the character of the woodpecker represent her mother’s critical voice, which the protagonist has internalised? Where is this woman’s closest male relative and why is he allowing her to speak in public in the first place?
The use of the second-person narration was also particularly cloying.
Have you read many issues of Dabiq recently? We noticed many themes in your story that seemed to have been shoehorned in to make it appear to be more suited for our journal. The constant reference to the might of the Global Caliphate seemed out of place in your coming-of-age story set in turn-of-the-century Tanzania. The protagonist being judged on her public speaking skills on the actual Day of Judgement also seemed a little unnecessary. We feel your work deserves better than that. (Please note that this will be listed in your list of crimes should and when you are captured after we defeat the armies of Rome and the flag of the Caliphate flies over your ruined cities.)
For these reasons, we regret that your submission is unsuited for the pages of Dabiq. As you may imagine a great many factors go into making these choices. With only so much room we can only include so many of the literal tens of submissions we receive each month (let alone unsolicited submissions from shirking kafirs like yourself.) The decision process becomes more difficult every month as we constantly have to stay on the move to stay ahead of advancing coalition forces, and our editorial team is under a lot of strain as western journalists are getting harder to kidnap.
We hope this does not deter you from sending more of your work to us in the future.
Sincerely,
The Editor
Dabiq
The Islamic State
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