Joseph Akel is a writer based in New York and San Francisco, USA. He is currently a PhD candidate in the Rhetoric Department of the University of California, Berkeley.
Driving into Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, at 1:30 in the morning, a line from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice came to mind. Speeding past rows of newly-built but noticeably vacant high rises, the glowing orb of the yet-to-be completed Baku National Stadium – the main venue for the inaugural European Games which the city will host in June – and shuttered shop fronts bearing the illuminated signage of Western luxury brands, the Bard’s words seemed duly apropos. “All that glisters is not gold.”
