8 - 14 November 2001
Issue No.559
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 8 - 14 November 2001 Issue No.559 |
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At a glance
A shorthand guide to recent publications compiled by Mahmoud El-Wardani
Magazines and Periodicals
Al-Hilal (The Crescent), monthly magazine, Cairo: Dar Al-Hilal, November 2001
The 11 September attacks on Washington and New York occupy the greater part of the latest edition of this cultural monthly, with Al-Hilal devoting a section of articles to the attacks, including pieces by Ahmed Youssef Ahmed on "What remains of the United States?," Hassan Nafaa on "Freedom between the US and the Third World," and Mustafa Nabil on the war between the world's strongest and weakest nations in his "America and the Green Line." Elsewhere in the issue, Amani Abdel-Hamid writes on Afghanistan in "The World's Ceiling" and Salah Qunsuh discusses American academic Samuel Huntington's theory of the "clash of civilisations", describing it as a "rotten prediction that is in danger of coming true." Economist Galal Amin writes on the economic and moral ramifications of the latest events.
The issue includes commentary by Mahmoud Qasem on the award of this year's Nobel Prize for Literature to the Anglo-Trinidadian writer V S Naipaul. The arts section includes articles by Sabri Mansour on mosaics and Izzeddin Naguib on the fine arts collection at the Library of Alexandria. There is also a translation section, in which Maher Shafiq Farid and Ibrahim Fathi write on standards for translating contemporary Arab literature, and Hamed Abu Ahmed asks whether the translation of Arabic literature can really help raise its international profile.
Sotour (Lines), monthly magazine, No.60, Cairo: Sotour Publishing House, November 2001
In the main section of this Cairo monthly, entitled "America and Us," El-Sayed Mohamed Awad, Husam Sweilam and Hazem Hosni contribute pieces on "The Ramifications of the Twin Towers," "The Theatre of Operations in Afghanistan" and "The Beast's Intestines: Between the Jurisprudence of 'Jihad' and the American Jurisprudence of 'the End of the History'," respectively, while Talaat Muslim writes a lyric piece entitled "Arab I am -- in Name" and Ahmed El-Sayed El-Naggar contributes economic analysis in the shape of a piece on "The Arab Economy in the Shadow of Black Tuesday."
The issue also includes a piece by Mohamed Nour Farahat on the "terrors of civilisation" and another by Ahmed Mohamed Saleh on religion and self-determination. Ahmed Youssef Ahmed writes on contemporary Arab fragmentation, while Intisar El-Shatti writes on future scenarios for the United States.
Adab wa Naqd (Literature and Criticism), cultural monthly, No.194, Cairo: Tagammu Party Publications, October 2001
The October edition of this respected cultural monthly does not deal with the 11 September attacks on the United States, instead containing a miscellaneous collection of articles and studies on a variety of topics. Thus, Abdel-Kerim Darwish writes on "Pierre Bourdieu between Marx and Weber," while Salah El-Serwi writes on identity in the Arabic novel, and Khalil Abdel-Kerim on "The Development of the Islamic Left." Malak Nasr reviews Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey's recent book Jesus 2000.
Elsewhere, Wadie Amin edits a special section on Sayed Darwish, which includes a biography of the late musician, as well as an overview of his compositions and a collection of well-known poems written on him by poets from Ahmed Shawqi to Salah Jahin. This month's poetry section includes a translation by Ashraf Abul-Yazid of Gandhi's A Thought for the Day, which he wrote for his adopted child Anand Hingorani.
Zawaya (Corners), zero issue, Beirut: Dafaf lil-Nashr,October 2001
This new cultural magazine is due to appear very shortly and is intended as a bi-monthly publication. It is concerned with the cultural activities of younger Arab generations. And in fact, judging by this zero issue, the editors have tried to incorporate articles from different corners of the Arab world. This issue includes a profile and interview with Egyptian feminist writer Nawal El-Saadawi and an interview with Palestinian writer Fadwa Tuqan. Photography and fine arts exhibitions are reviewed and a special section for Arab cultural Web sites is marked. One does look forward to the first issue of this new publication.
BooksUsama Bin Ladin: Al-Shabah aladhi Sana'atuhu Amrika (Osama Bin Laden: The Phantom America Created), Abdel-Rehim Ali, Cairo: Mirette, 2001. pp 179
This book, published days after the 11 September attacks, is obviously based on years of careful research, for in it the author delineates Osama Bin Laden's relationship with the United States since the mid 1980s. At this time, Bin Laden, fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, was an ally of the US, this relationship only changing, if dramatically, in 1991 with the Gulf War. The author's discussion encompasses the various stages of Bin Laden's life and includes fascinating material on his metamorphosis from Saudi millionaire to Afghan mujahid. It also includes a valuable survey of the various Islamic jihad movements in Egypt and in other Middle Eastern countries that Bin Laden may have had contacts with. In addition, appendixes to the book give the full text of the "Declaration of the World Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders", of Abu Qutada Al-Filastini's "Fatwa on Killing Civilians" and of a speech made by Bin Laden broadcast by the American television network CNN in March 1997.
Fi Al-Naqd Al-Tatbiqi: Sayyadou Al-Dhakira (In Applied Criticism: Memory Hunters), Radwa Ashour, Beirut: Al-Markaz Al-Thaqafi Al-Arabi, 2001. pp228.
The Egyptian critic and writer Radwa Ashour has divided her latest book into three sections, each one looking in a new way at well-known texts and giving new and fascinating insights on them. Thus, in her first section, Ashour reads Ibn Tufayl's novel Hayy Ibn Yaqzan against Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea and Chinghiz Aitmatov's Piebald Dog Running Along the Shore, traces the relationship between Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy and Ibrahim Aslan's later novel Malik Al-Hazin and gives a suggestive analysis of Palestinian writer Emile Habibe's Kharafiyyit Saraya Bint Al-Ghoul. She looks at the Palestine of 1948 through the study of four texts, following this by looking at the image of Palestine in the poetry of Fouad Haddad and Amal Dunqul and examining the creative output of Arab women, especially that of Egyptian writer Latifa El-Zayyat.
Ashour's second section is devoted to the criticism of works by Anglophone writers, notably of Conrad and Shakespeare, while her third records aspects of her experience as an author, of the Grenada Trilogy of novels, rather than as a critic. This leads one to suspect that the book is designed in part to help bridge the gap between academic criticism and the general reading public by showing how for once author and critic can meet in one and the same person.
Al-Binaa Al-Qassasi lil-Ma'rifa Al-Abawiya fi Kitab Alif Baa lil-Balawi (The Narrative Construct of Partriarchal Knowledge in Al-Balawi's Alif Baa), Abeer Salama, Cairo: n.p., 2001. pp121
This study, concerned with the 12th century Andalucian scholar Abul-Haggag Youssef Ibn Mohamed Al-Balawi, offers a vivid account of the nature and structure of Arab Andalucia in southern Spain in the Middle Ages, giving fascinating glimpses of its literary life in particular. Al-Balawi wrote an encyclopaedia, the Kitab Alif Baa, which deals with the literary and academic life of his times, and this is the only work from among his many books to have survived. The author first gives a brief biography of Al-Balawi and then devotes the rest of her book to an analysis of the Kitab Alif Baa, discussing its content, methodology and narrative structure, which she says draws on early Arab theories of narrative.
Bint: Qissas Qasira (A Girl: Short Stories), Hanaa Hegazi, Cairo: Mirette, 2001. pp91
It is telling that Saudi author Hanaa Hegazi has chosen A Girl as the title for her first collection of short stories, and telling too that she has chosen Cairo as the city in which to publish it. A Girl includes 23 short stories written over a period of ten years (1988-1998), the majority of which have not previously been published. Mirette, Hegazi's publishers, describe the collection as recording "a serene, yet sincere, voice that reveals a young woman's growing pains. It is a collection that looks at decades of oil-financed growth with an insider's insight... In short, a collection that ushers in a new period in contemporary Saudi literature."
Sirat Al-Waga' (The Pain Sira), Amir Tag Al-Sirr, Qatar: Al-Maglis Al-Watani lil-Thaqafa wa Al-Funun wa Al-Turath, 2001. pp155
The Qatar-based Sudanese author Amir Tag Al-Sirr has published three novels, Karmakul in 1988, Samaa Bilawn Al-Yaqut in 1996 and Nar Al-Zagharid in 1998. Sirat Al-Waga' is his latest work, and of it the Iraqi critic Farouq Youssef comments: "it neither re-narrates nor explains lived reality; instead, Sirat Al-Waga' is a novel that explodes it with surprising force. Deep down in Tag Al-Sirr is the soul of a poetic rebel, and his poetry is one that is made out of the mundane, often unperceived details of life."
Inahu Al-Rabi' min Al Mustagab (This is the Fourth Member of the Mustagab Family), Mohamed Mustagab, Cairo: General Organisation for Cultural Palaces, Silsilat Aswat Adabiya (Literary Voices Series), 2001. pp104
Mohamed Mustagab has a habit of writing about his family, his earlier publications all being named after family members with the exception of his novella Al-Tarikh Al-Sirri li-Nu'man Abdel-Hafez (The Secret History of Nu'man Abdel-Hafez), which was very well received when it appeared some years ago. In this, his latest novel, however, Mustagab has returned to his favourite family, the Mustagabs of Upper Egypt, giving the kind of delightful details about them that will please his many fans.
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