11 - 17 October 2001
Issue No.555
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 11 - 17 October 2001 Issue No.555 |
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At a glance
A shorthand guide to the month compiled by Mahmoud El-Wardani
Magazines and Periodicals
Amkenah: Concerned with the Poetic of the Place, non periodical, volume 3, Alexandria, August 2001
The third issue of this independently funded Alexandria compendium celebrates the Nuba, drawing on the magazine's traditional concern with place. Interviews by editor Alaa Khaled stand side by side with photographs by Salwa Rashad to deliver a multi-faceted vision of this sometimes neglected part of Upper Egypt. An encounter with a Nubian at a traditional café in the Alexandria district of Kom Eddeka rounds off this part of the issue. In addition, in a section entitled "The City" an impressive array of writers contribute discussions, commentaries and reflections on a number of stimulating themes. Elsewhere, the magazine looks again at the Palestinian question, reproducing life stories that represent a range of Palestinian experiences.
Sotour, (Lines), monthly cultural magazine, Cairo: Sotour Publications, October 2001
Celebrating the year-old Palestinian Al-Aqsa Intifada, this issue of the Cairo cultural monthly includes contributions from Hazem Hosni on "Rules of the Game in the Information Age," Ahmed Abul-Kheir on a new chapter in Palestinian resistance, Mohamed Hegazi on Israeli reactions to the Intifada, Ezzat El-Qamhawi on Israeli brutality, and Ahmed Saleh on questions posed by the Intifada and possible Palestinian responses to them. The issue also includes coverage of the 11 September attacks on Washington and New York, with Hazem Hosni and Ayman Bakr dealing with prospects for the future and unthinking American accusations against the Arabs and Muslims, respectively. Besides the magazine's usual selection of poems, short stories and regular departments, Mohamed Khan's recent film, Days of Sadat, is used as a starting point for a series of articles on the late Egyptian president.
Aqwas, (Parentheses), quarterly cultural review, no. 2,, Ramallah, Palestine: Palestinian Cultural Centre "Bayt Al-Shi'r", Summer 2001
In the Summer 2001 issue of this Ramallah-based Palestinian quarterly, the "Palestinian Artist of the Year" competition receives special attention, with a whole section of the magazine devoted to reviews of work by artists in competition, as well as of interviews with them. Elsewhere, there is a section entitled "Nuqta Sakhina" (Hot Point), which comprises accounts of Arab experiences in Israeli prisons, exposing the true face of Israeli "democracy." Here, poets Onsi Al-Saila and Nidal Burqan provided personal testimony, drawing on the first Intifada as well as the present one. The issue also includes poems by Hassan Al-Batal and Ziyad Abul-Rabb, short stories by Khaled Darwish and Ibrahim Gaber Ibrahim, an interview with the Palestinian writer Khodier Mieri and a study of the "architecture of Palestinian poetry" by Hussien Gamil Al-Barghouthi.
Ruwaq Arabi, irregular publication, no.22 Cairo: Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, 2001
Issues having to do with the development of civil society in Syria, Algeria, Sudan and Egypt make up the main part of this issue of this occasional human-rights publication. Radwan Ziyada writes on the problems of democracy in Syria, Al-Ayyash Unsur on conflicts between political power and political institutions in the Arab World using Algeria as a main example, and Abdel-Rehim Belal writes on voluntary work in Sudan. Poet Helmi Salem provides a portrait of Taha Hussein as "a social and cultural phenomenon," while Qayed Diyab tackles the vexed issue of political commitment in the arts. Elsewhere, poets Ahmed Dahbour, Mahmoud Nessim, Mohamed Kushiek and Ayman Abdel-Hadi honour the Palestinian Intifada with a series of poems conceived in its spirit.
Books
The Cairo Trilogy, Naguib Mahfouz, transl. William Maynard Hutchins, Olive E Kenny, Lorne M Kenny and Angele Botros Samaan, Everyman's Library, Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2001. pp1313
Everyman's Library and the American University in Cairo Press have just published a new edition of Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz's classic trilogy. Palace walk, Palace of Desire and Sugar Street appear here in one volume for the first time. This edition includes a new introduction by Sabry Hafez, published in the September issue of the Books Supplement. The Cairo trilogy is an engrossing story of three generations of a Muslim family in Cairo during Britain's occupation of Egypt in the early decades of the twentieth century. This new Everyman edition is available at AUC Bookstores for LE120.
Acceptance of the Other, Milad Hanna, trans. Ahmed El-Sherif Hammad, Cairo: Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, 2001. pp190
Milad Hanna, a well-known Egyptian intellectual, is famous for his commitment to the values of tolerance and of co-existence, and his Acceptance of the Other, a response to the American academic Samuel Huntington's theory of the "clash of civilisations," has now been made available in English translation. In the book, Hanna takes issue with Huntington's thesis, which ranges the Christian and the Islamic worlds against each other, offering instead the value of the "acceptance of the other." Diversity is a universal phenomenon, Hanna argues, which only enriches mankind. Cultural diversity between nations, and within the same nation, is a major source of dynamism. First published in Arabic in 1988, Acceptance of the Other won "Best Book Award" at that year's Cairo International Book Fair.
Raqsat Al-Ashwaq (The Dance of Longing), Edwar El-Kharrat, Cairo: Wikalat Al-Sahafa Al-Arabiya, 2001. pp172
This book contains a selection of five short stories made by the veteran Alexandrian and experimental author from his published collections, including Hitan Aliya (High Walls), his celebrated 1959 debut piece. El-Kharrat is a remarkably prolific writer and the present selection is intended as a summing up of his achievement in one genre. "The people who populate these stories," the publisher writes, "are connected by a single temporal framework and by a city that the writer has invented. This is a city that nourishes their days and nights, filling them with barely supportable feelings of love, fear, hunger and happiness. This is not simply their city, however; rather, it is a city of El-Kharrat's creation, accommodating dreams and memories going back to the dawn of Creation."
Mudhakkirat Talib Bi'tha (Memoirs of a Student on a Research Grant), Louis Awad, Cairo: Kitab Al-Hilal, 2001. pp445
As part of the international conference organised by the Supreme Council for Culture last week to honour the late Egyptian intellectual Louis Awad, Kitab Al-Hilal has republished Awad's memoirs, Mudhakkirat Talib Bi'tha. Awad wrote this controversial book in 1942 in colloquial Arabic following his return from England, where he had earned a PhD in English Literature. Awad used colloquial Arabic for his 400-page book to explore the issue of diglossia, the simultaneous existence of the Arabic language in its written and spoken form and to test the expressive power of Egyptian ammiyya, or colloquial, spoken Arabic. Many writers before Awad, including Taha Hussein, Tewfik El-Hakim and Yehia Haqqi, had experienced the kind of cultural shock that Awad describes here when confronted by Western civilisation. Following on from Awad, similar experiences have informed the writings of others, such as El-Tayeb Saleh, Suhayl Idris and Youssef Idris.
Al-Sinima Al-Arabiyya Al-Mustaqilla (Independent Arab Cinema), Salah Hashem, London: Festival of Independent Arab Screens, 2001. pp67
In his introduction to this book, cinema critic Salah Hashem emphasises the necessary independence of cinema from Hollywood-style movies, which are geared, he says, to satisfying the desires of the spectator and have little cognitive value. In contrast, he favours the use of personal experience and autobiography in film, a trend related to others in contemporary independent cinema, both documentary and narrative. Hashem looks in detail at recent influential Arab films, whose directors have tried to overturn the traditions of commercial cinema. In addition to the Egyptian experience, Hashem also discusses Palestinian, Moroccan and Lebanese film.
Al-Nisaa wa Al-Harakat Al-Islamiyya wa Al-Dawla (Women, Islamisms and the State: Contemporary Feminisms in Egypt), Azza Karam, trans. Shuhrat El-Alim, Cairo: Sotour Publications, 2001. pp312
Azza Karam, Director of the Women's Programme at the International Conference on Religion and Islam and a professor at the Centre for Comparative Ethnic Conflict at Queen's University, Belfast (Northern Ireland), focuses on Egypt in her new book looking at the relationship between contemporary feminist ideologies, women's issues more generally, Islamisms and the State. Women, Islamism and the State: Contemporary Feminisms in Egypt looks at the political, cultural and economic challenges facing Egyptian women. It deals with the Egyptian political system, particularly at how the State deals with women's issues, and it looks at the discourse on women of Political Islam and of the Islamist movements. Karam also discusses the positions taken by what she calls the "feminist elite" -- both secular and Islamist -- towards women's issues, together with the place of this elite in the wider society.
Kashahr Tawil min Al-'Ishq (Like a Long Summer of Desire), Paul Shaoul, Beirut and London: Dar Riyad Al-Rayyis, 2001. pp94
The Lebanese author Paul Shaoul is best known as the writer of five plays, the first being Al-Mutamarrida (The Rebellious Woman) in 1975 and the last Al-Za'ir (The Visitor) in 1995. Yet, he has also contributed to Arabic poetry through his six published collections of poetry, the earliest of which was Ayuha Al-Ta'in fi Al-Mawt. Like a Long Summer of Desire is also a collection of Shaoul's poetry, and it includes three long poems, Nisaa (Women), Ahwal Al-Gasad (Affairs of the Body), and Al-Matar Al-Qadim (Old Rain), in addition to the long prose text, written in the early 1990s, that gives the book its title.
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