Recent Stories

Lebanon Still Overshadowed by Oblivion As Port Blast Aftermath Enters Fourth Year
 
Art has played an influential role in making sense of the loss felt after the August 4 explosion. Tom Young’s “Strong Angels” and other paintings show a human dimension of the tragedy and its civilian heroes, who “join forces to lift the city’s grief,” writes Darine Houmani of Diffah Three (The New Arab). “Despite all its devastation, the August 4 explosion brought greater impetus to preserve our heritage and brought about a database of our historical buildings that hadn’t been done before,” states Mona Hallak, an architect, heritage activist, and director of the American University of Beirut’s Neighborhood Initiative, as cited in The New Arab. Several weighed in on the rebuilding efforts, including Lebanese architect Jad Tabet, who proposed “rehabilitation” rather than “reconstruction,” focusing on preserving the city’s existing social fabric and inhabitants alongside the architecture (for further reading on Jad Tabet and architectural heritage, see Al Jadid, Vol. 4, No, 25, Fall 1998; Vol. 5, No. 26, Winter 1999; and Vol. 24, No. 79, 2020). As art historian and gallery owner Andrée Sfeir-Semler says, “You need to nourish people with art and culture because that is what feeds their souls.”

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Our Current Issue

A City of Many Homelands:

How 'Niyū Yūrk' Archives the Story of Middle Eastern New York
By Naomi Pham
 
A rich resource capturing the vast cultural history of New York’s MENA community over centuries, the exhibition "Niyū Yūrk: Middle Eastern and North African Lives in the City" ran from October 4, 2025, to March 8, 2026. Curated by Hiba Abid, the Curator for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, and organized by the New York Public Library, the exhibition explores the history of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) immigration to New York City from the late 19th century to the present, tracing through art, music, literature, and the slew of accomplishments made by the community the ways these emigrants planted their roots in their new home.
Essays and Features

From Asfourieh to Aftermath:

Psychiatry, the State, and the Collapse of Care in Lebanon
By Naomi Pham
 
The stigmatization of mental illness remains prevalent in the Arab world, especially surrounding psychiatric institutions like the Asfourieh Hospital, formally known as the Lebanon Hospital for the Insane, which closed its doors in 1982. While part of Asfourieh’s reputation stems from its direct associations with infamous cases like that of May Ziadeh, much of the hospital’s history has been overlooked, from its ties to the development of treatment for the mentally ill, its contributions in furthering psychiatric studies, and its role as one of the leaders in modernizing medicine in the Arab world at the time.
Essays and Features

Writing Against Defeat:

Issam Mahfouz’s Theatre, Criticism, and the Struggle for Meaning
By Naomi Pham
 
The late Lebanese playwright, poet, and critic Issam Mahfouz was known for his contributions in numerous fields, including modern poetry, journalism, and, perhaps most famously, as one of the pioneering figures of the Lebanese modern theater movement that lasted from the late 1950s up to the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war in 1975. Following his death in 2006, Al Jadid published a feature article by the late Mohammad Dakroub highlighting Mahfouz’s contributions to Arab criticism. Now, 21 years after his death, many continue to recall his legacy. Alhussam Muhy al-Din’s article, “Twenty Years After the Passing of Issam Mahfouz: A Legacy That Extends Beyond the Theater,” published in Al Quds Al Arabi, rekindles appreciation for the works of this celebrated writer.
Essays and Features

Between Knowledge and the Body:

Cultured Women and the Fragmented Self in Arab Fiction
By Naomi Pham
 
Arab women have paved their own paths in the Arab social and cultural sphere throughout history — especially in the early to mid-20th century — by any means possible, whether as writers, leaders, teachers, or founders of clubs, magazines, and movements. Like in reality, women’s determination to secure their positions in fiction is layered with complex barriers. A valuable addition to the Arab critical library, Yemeni writer and researcher Huda al-Attas’ new book, “The Cultured Woman in the Arab Novel: Appropriating Masculinity and Liberating the Body” (Riad Al Rayyes Books and Publishing, 2026), examines the presence and portrayal of women in Arab fiction, going beyond superficial analyses of women as social and emotional beings to question the ways culture, knowledge, and femininity intersect with her existence. Ali Jazo reviews the book in an article for Al Modon, “The Cultured Woman’ by Huda al-Attas: The Imitation of Masculinity and the Suspended Being.”
Essays and Features

Out of Sight, Yet Still On the Mind:

Clinging to the Fading Memory of Lebanon’s Jewish Community
By Naomi Pham
 
Lebanon’s dwindling Jewish community is not a recent development, yet it has been reported on like a fascinating phenomenon for years. The once-bustling Jewish quarter in Beirut, Wadi Abu Jamil, is a mere memory. The Magen Abraham Synagogue, built in the district in 1925, now stands abandoned as a silent witness to a bygone era. Only a few dozen members of the Jewish community remain in Beirut, and even fewer are known to the public. In 2019, Liza Srour, one of the last residents of the Jewish quarter, passed away. Last year, the community lost one of its last known members, the art critic and journalist Joseph Tarrab, who refused to leave Lebanon and remained until his death on January 1, 2025.
 
Essays and Features

Drawing the Curtains on Wajdi Mouawad’s ‘Controversial’ Play: Lebanese Intellectuals’ Defense of Director Warns of State Chokehold on Freedom of Expression

By 
Elie Chalala
 
“Theatrical” perhaps best describes the current state of Lebanon’s performing arts scene, which seems to be embroiled in its own drama in recent days. Early this year, we bade farewell to the director and actor duo Antoine and Latifa Multaqa, pioneers of Lebanese theater’s 1960s avant-garde era and, for a moment, relished in nostalgia for Beirut’s culturally vibrant bygone days. Unfortunately, such rose-tinted memories have little room under the stifling atmosphere overtaking much of Lebanon’s arts and culture.

The Tragicomic Lebanese Reality in Raymond Jebara’s Theater: ‘Sarcastic to the Point of Despair’

By 
Elie Chalala


“There are clear faces that do not hide anything, as if their features convey the stories of their owners. It is as if every story in the life of its owner left a mark on it. For the Lebanese playwright Raymond Jebara, he wears a face of fatigue mixed with sharp sarcasm and a smile... eyes that describe the man,” wrote the Kuwaiti Al Jarida in an interview with Jebara in 2010.

The ‘Guardian of Gaza’: Fathi Ghaben (1946-2024) Preserved Palestinian Memory, Colors, Dress, and Symbols Through Art

By 
Elie Chalala
 
As if gripped by the fear of losing the history of Palestine, Fathi Ghaben kept Palestine close to him for his entire life, in his mind, art, and physical existence. Reporters, critics, and Palestinian government officials paid tribute to the artist, whose unwavering focus on Palestinian culture and memory saturated his life and work.

Multi-Talented ‘Poet of Colors’ Magdy Naguib (1936-2024) Mesmerized Music Composers and Singers of Egypt’s Musical Golden Age

By 
Elie Chalala
 
The widespread reach of the Egyptian song and its artistic achievements, going beyond the Arab sphere to the rest of the world, owes its success to musicians, singers, and poets whose writings remain immortal today. Among them is the poet Magdy Naguib, who departed from the cultural scene on February 7, 2024, reports Al Habeeb Al Aswad in Al Arab newspaper. Hardly a moment goes by without news of the Arab cultural scene losing an artist, poet, songwriter, or other creative.

Postscript to ‘Indefinite Postponement’: Adania Shibli Breaks Silence on Frankfurt Book Fair Decision and Finds a Voice in the Absence of Words

By 
Naomi Pham
 
When the Frankfurt Book Fair announced last October the “indefinite postponement” of Palestinian author Adania Shibli’s award for her novel “Minor Detail,” outrage erupted among critics not just in the Arab world but globally, with numerous translators, publishers, and award-winning authors condemning the decision in an open letter.

Six Years After Publication, Zionist Protests Transform Adania Shibli’s ‘Minor Detail’ Into a Major Detail

By 
Elie Chalala
 
Arab reactions to the “indefinite postponement” of an award ceremony honoring Palestinian author Adania Shibli and her novel, “Minor Detail”  have ranged from ideological to radical, with several voices leveraging the October 16 decision by LitProm, the awards administrator of the Frankfurt Book Fair, as yet another reason to decry Western imperialism.

Working through War: Women Tell Their Stories through the Arts

By 
Lynne Rogers
 
Women’s War Stories: The Lebanese Civil War, Women’s Labor, and the Creative Arts
Edited by Michelle Hartman and Malek Abisaab
Syracuse University Press, 2022
 
In “Women’s War Stories: The Lebanese Civil War, Women’s Labor, and the Creative Arts,” editors Michelle Hartman and Malek Abisaab curated six essays that begin to address the lack of scholarship on the role o

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