| Essay |
“Women Writing Men, Men Writing
Women”From left to right:
Amal Amireh, Sonallah Ibrahim,
Hoda Barakat,Ahmad Dallal.
Photo taken by David KimBY ANDREA SHALAL-ESA
Literature had a starring role at the Kennedy Center’s three-week festival of Arab arts and culture from February 23 - March 15, drawing dozens of noted writers and literary critics from Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and other Arab countries, as well as the United States. Eight panels on varying topics and five performances were largely at full capacity, underscoring what many writers described as growing interest in their work. More…
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| Essay |
Tayeb Salih by
Mamoun Sakkkal for Al Jadid
The Season of Tayeb Salih – Crossing the Boundaries
BY LYNNE ROGERS
While some immediately think of the violent crisis in Darfur at the mention of Sudan , others will remember Tayeb Salih, the legendary Sudanese writer who passed away in London at the age of 80. His monumental novel, “Season of Migration to the North,” first published in English in 1969, is considered by many critics to be the work that launched contemporary Arab literature onto the world stage and into the modern canon. More…
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| Essay |
 Monkith Saaid: Fingertips Grasping Place
BY SHAWIQI ABD AL-AMIR
In Monkith Saaid's studio in Sahnayah, a village south of Damascus , nothing escapes his artistic universe; neither moldy wood, rusted steel, smashed reeds nor stones or glass. Not even sawdust. All traditionally neglected material evading sight or interest enters his workshop and transforms itself, through his extraordinary genius, into beautiful and delicate creatures, whispers of love and shouts of protest against oppression, which collapse together in a hysterical dance. More…
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| Essay |
 The Politics of Getting Published: The Continuing Struggle of Arab-American Writers
BY ANDREA SHALAL-ESA
More Arab-American writers are getting their work published than ever before, but even those lucky few who land lucrative book contracts with big publishers still face a host of problems ranging from censorship to being pigeonholed as only Arab-American writers. Clearly, U.S. publishing has a growing appetite for information about the Arab and Muslim worlds, but many mainstream media remain deeply affected by an Orientalist agenda that focuses on the oppression of women and other stereotypes about Arab society. More…
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| Essay |
Your Place'
2006
Christine Eid Photographer: Andrew Lloyd
BY CHRISTINE EID
“ Melbourne ’s taxi entrepreneurs who came to Australia from Hadchit , Lebanon , who included my father, were the influence behind my solo, contemporary art exhibition entitled ‘Transit’, held in 2006 at Span Galleries in Melbourne , Australia . Exploring my own history I recorded the rich oral stories of this group, who migrated to Australia as part of the second wave of Lebanese migration (1947-1975),” wrote Christine Eid. More… |
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| Book Review |
  
Building the Future While Embracing the Past:
New Directions in Arab-American Art and Culture
BY D. W. AOSSEY
Once a hallmark of our collective social conscious, assimilation into Western culture and society has recently taken on new meaning. In the wake of escalating domestic and international conflict over the past decade, we suddenly find ourselves standing before the proverbial looking glass, repeating what we should have known all along: if we, as Arab Americans, don’t define who we are and for what we stand, someone else will do it for us. And nowhere is it more important for us to take a stand than in the true heritage of our people – the arts and culture. Three recent books on the subject, “In/Visible: Contemporary Art by Arab American Artists,” “Etching Our Own Image: Voices from Within the Arab American Art Movement,” and “Telling Our Story: The Arab American National Museum,” address this issue with a fresh perspective and an eye toward the future. More… |
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| Essay |
BY MOHAMMAD ALI ATASSI
Sexual harassment of women in Egypt is one of many social problems that politicians and the media have tended to treat as an instance of individual, abnormal behavior. Because they treat it as an isolated aberration from proper outside the path, principles and traditions of a sanctioned way of life – Egyptian society as a whole does not need to confront it. More... |
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| Remembrance |
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BY MAHMOUD SAEED
The highest honors in modern Arab literature rightly fall on icons like Taha Hussein and Naguib Mahfouz, both authors of irrefutable genius. But while these figures deserve their place in Arab letters, the publishers behind them – who, often amid difficult circumstances, have the courage and vision to bring their work to readers – sometimes fail to receive their due. Suheil Idriss, an important literary figure in his own right, might lack the recognition shared by Hussein and Mahfouz, but his accomplishments as a publisher rivaled those of the canon’s most esteemed authors. More… |
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| Remembrance |
 Bashir al-Daouk (1931-2007)
In Memoriam: Farewell to Publisher Hero
BY ELIE CHALALA
As happens in the West, Arab culture often celebrates authors at the expense of publishers. Also like their Western counterparts, Arab publishers tend toward commercialism and self-interest, jeopardizing the public’s best interest. And, typically, they are only too ready to abandon authors of manuscripts deemed “controversial,” as well as those on whose behalf they receive threats from governments or non-governmental groups. But Lebanon, and even the Arab world, prides itself on the exception that was Dr. Bashir al-Daouk, the late owner of the publishing house Dar Al Talia and the monthly magazine, Dirasaat Arabiyya (Arab Studiess).More… |
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| Interview |
AN INTERVIEW CONDUCTED BY BANDAR ABD Al-HAMID
Monkith Saaid (1958-2008) was a distinct presence among Arab sculptors of his generation. His artistic experience combined creativity, an intensity of ideas, talent, innovation and a humanist tendency which left him completely open to the dynamics of life in this world. During his lifetime, Saaid was renowned for his spontaneous, joyful laughter. More...
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| Music |
 Mansour Rahbani, Legacy of a Family and a Generation
BY SAMI ASMAR
Modern Arab music was shaped by a few highly creative individuals throughout the 20th century. Three of them were members of one family: the Rahbanis of Lebanon, comprised of the two brothers Assi and Mansour, and a singer named Nuhad Haddad who married Assi and took the name Fairuz. Their documented journey has become legendary; for nearly three decades, the Rahbani Brothers wrote and composed songs that Fairuz sang and musicals in which she starred. More...
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| Music |
 
BY SAMI ASMAR
A division has long existed between large Western-style orchestras and ethnic ensembles of all types. Western Orchestral musicians are rigorously, classically trained and precisely follow a conductor while they read from common music sheets that preserve the details of the compositions.More... |
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| Art |
 Abstract Sculpture Cropping up in Beirut’s Public Spaces
BY RIMA BARAKAT
Increasingly more public sculpture, both representational and purely abstract, is beginning to appear in the public spaces of Beirut. More...
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| Art |
BY D.W. AOSSEY
The phrase “Divide and Conquer” is a familiar one to students of history and international conquest alike. But when internal divisions are imposed upon peaceful civilians the concept takes on an exceptionally cruel irony – and few places today more fundamentally represent this disparity than the U.S./Mexico border region and Israeli-occupied Palestine. More...
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| Music |
 Issa Boulos Brings Al-Hallaj Back to Life
By SAMI ASMAR
Composing the text of classical Arabic poetry is a tremendous challenge typically avoided by musicians seeking the rewards of mass appeal. Regional dialects are favored due to the supposed ease on listeners, especially adolescent consumers of CDs and music DVDs. So when a composer dusts off the poetry of the little known Abu al-Mughith al-Hussayn Ibn Mansur al-Hallaj, who was brutally executed in Baghdad in 922 for his pacifist Sufi writings, it is an indication of a rare musical confidence. More…
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| Essay |
Nazik al-Malaika by
Mamoun Sakkkal for Al Jadid
Nazik al-Malaika (1923-2007)Iraqi Woman’s Journey Changes Map
of Arabic Poetry
BY SIMONE STEVENS
Nazik al-Malaika, one of Iraq’s most famous poets, died June 20, 2007, at the age of 83. Al-Malaika was best known for her role as a pioneer of the free verse movement, making a sharp departure from the classical rhyme form that had dominated Arabic poetry for centuries. More...
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| Interview |
 Jawad al-Assadi: Director Returns to Iraq to Find Nothing the ‘Same’
bY REBECCA JOUBIN
“….After a lengthy exile, I returned after the downfall of the dictator. As I entered my homeland, I was shattered by how war’s ruin had replaced the beautiful landscape, just like that, without any semblance of shame. I lamented the fact that the madness of Saddam’s regime had piled the country’s rich mythological traditions alongside heaps of garbage which lined the street corners. But what shook me most was how the demon of religious authority had imposed itself on society and destroyed centuries of progress, and how fanaticism had single-handedly turned the country back into the dark ages, a feat even greater than that which the Taliban had managed. More… |
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| Art |
 A Treasured Mystery
bY SIMONE FATTAL
Phoenician history and art are the dual subjects of an exhibit that took place a year ago in Paris at the Institut du Monde Arabe. "The world of the Phoenicians can be found throughout the Mediterranean, and many of their treasures
are rediscovered in places
other than their country of origin. Sardinia, Cyprus, Italy, Spain, Tunisia are all cities
they founded or utilized as commercial outposts, stops along the Phoenicians' expansive sea routes," wrote Simone Fattal. More...
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| Essay |
 To Boycott or Not to Boycott:
The Politics of Culture at Paris, Turin Book Fairs
bY ELIE CHALALA
The polemical issue of boycott is a longstanding one in Arab political, economic and cultural discourse. The debate involves three groups. The first promotes all-out opposition toward any contact with Israel, cultural or political. The second opposes the boycott and believes that the Arabs and Palestinians should not fear a cultural confrontation with the Zionists because the latter has no moral superiority. The third separates the cultural from the political, considering the Book Fair a political rather than cultural, thus its boycott was justified. More...
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| Essay |
 Disrepair and Neglect Mar Kahlil Gibran Memorial
BY STAN SHABAZ
The essay is an ironic commentary about an official celebration (by Bush senior and Norman Schwarzkopf) of Gibran as an advocate of peace while wars are being waged. But the dissonance between the glorification of Gibran as a man of peace, and the orchestration of war by these same officials, is not the only contradiction Stan Shabaz notes. His visit to the Gibran Memorial Garden was hardly reassuring; “To my dismay, I found the memorial garden to be in a state of disrepair, much like the current state of U.S.-Near Eastern relations. The bronze sculpture of Gibran overlooks a fountain of brackish green, still water. Above the fountain, a sign warns: ‘Water unsafe for drinking.’” More...
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| Interview |
A Conversation with
Alaa al-Aswany on
“The Yacoubian Building”
BY PAMELA NICE
“Some Egyptians didn’t like the movie because they felt it focused only on the negative aspects of their society. But most of the many people I talked to were profoundly, emotionally moved by the film or book. Some credited the film for the success of the book. Others thought it was the sexual content (certainly tame by American standards) that boosted book sales,” wrote Pamela Nice. More... |
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