David Kenner is exploring the economic changes underway in Saudi Arabia. He is focusing on how the new generation of Saudis is adapting to that change, and its members’ hopes for the years ahead. David has reported widely from across the Middle East for more than a decade. He was Foreign Policy‘s Middle East editor from 2013 until 2018, when he guided the magazine’s regional coverage while based in Egypt and Lebanon. A lifelong student of Arabic, David is a graduate of Georgetown University, and also attended the American University of Beirut. He is particularly interested in how American values and interests intersect with Middle Eastern politics.
Dispatches from David Kenner
Beirut’s social fabric is tearing apart
Nearly three months after the port explosion, the fallout in one destroyed neighborhood reflects a country in collapse.
Saudi Arabia’s imagined worlds
Fiction has enabled authors to advance daring critiques of the kingdom’s social and political order.
Lebanon is collapsing
The catastrophic blast at Beirut’s port is the latest example of the country’s institutions falling apart.