Iman Mersal’s Archives & Crimes is one of the two publications that inaugurated Kayfa ta’s Howdunnit series, which bridges archival research and crime literature and probes how these investigative modes intersect and diverge.

 To enter a collective archive is to carry an anonymous corpse on your shoulders. You are not investigating how this corpse met its death so much as feeling impelled, somehow, to fill in the gaps that render it anonymous. Whether or not you are hoping to tell the story and share it with others, you might be able to give this corpse a name and lend a meaning to its life.