At a glance
A shorthand guide to recent publications compiled by Mahmoud El-Wardani
Magazines and Periodicals
|
Wujhat Nazar, monthly book review, Cairo: Egyptian Company for Arab and International Publication, issue 46, November 2002
 In the latest edition of this prestigious Cairo review of books, the celebrated Egyptian journalist and political commentator Mohamed Hassanein Heikal resumes his series of articles on the events preceding the July 1952 Revolution. Two lengthy book reviews discuss the impending war in Iraq, particular emphasis being given to the aims of the American military. The recent inauguration of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina library in Alexandria is the occasion for an article by Ahmed Osman, in which he contends that the original library was not in fact a Greek establishment, as well as for two further reviews of books bearing on the ancient library. The magazine also keeps up with the 28th International Children's Book Conference, held recently in Basle in Switzerland on the occasion of the golden jubilee of the International Council for Children's Books, publishing official material from the conference. Elsewhere in the issue there are pieces on economic privatisation in China by Mohamed Abdel-Rahman Younis and a review by Nasser El-Rabat of the latest novel by Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk.
|
Al-Hilal, monthly magazine, Cairo: Dar Al-Hilal, issue 11, November 2002
 This issue of the well-known Cairo monthly devotes a special section to the month of Ramadan, with a number of scholars contributing articles on a range of topics from Ramadan poets to conceptions of the sacred in Islamic architecture. Elsewhere in the issue, Esam El-Desouqi reviews a recent book of interviews by the Cairo journalist Makram Mohamed Ahmed with the leaders of Jihad and Jama'a Islamiya groups. Mustafa Soueif discusses the recent history of Iraq, drawing connections between the war of 1991 and the present crisis, and Galal Amin draws up a tentative cartography of present-day Egyptian wealth. Safinaz Kazim also contributes episodes from her childhood and early adolescence.
|
Adab wa Naqd, monthly magazine, Cairo: Tagamu' Party, issue 207, November 2002
 Two dossiers form the main substance of the most recent issue of this literary and political monthly. The first, on the threatened US-led attack on Iraq, features a translation of the foreign policy statement signed by many leading American intellectuals on the first anniversary of 11 September and entitled "Not in our name" with commentary by Mahmoud Amin El-Alem. It is not clear, however, why this dossier should also include articles on Oliver Stone and Ezra Pound. The issue's second dossier, on the 1960s writer Mohamed Hafez Ragab, features a new short story, a long interview and a critical article on this long-silent author's works. The rest of the issue includes articles on poet Taher El-Berenbali and on a new novel by Nagwa Shaaban, Nawwat Al-Karm.
|
Al-Thaqafa Al-Jadida, occasional magazine, Cairo: General Organisation for Cultural Palaces, issue 150, October 2002
 Creative writing occupies the greater portion of the second issue of this newly refurbished state-sponsored magazine, with 24 short stories and poems being accompanied by a long piece of reportage on authors who hold official posts in the state apparatus. A new department of the magazine, entitled "In the Shadows", is devoted to Mohamed El-Farabawi, a poet living in a small village near Mansoura in the Egyptian Delta who has long been unjustly neglected. Writer Ibrahim Aslan is the subject of another new department, "Dialogue", with the late Egyptian philosopher Abdel-Rahman Badawi's contribution to poetry being discussed in another section entitled "Portrait". In keeping with the magazine's increasingly active orientation, other articles discuss the Tanta Theatre, the Kafr Al-Shurafa Cultural Palace, both in the Delta, and the last round of the Egyptian Youth Salon.
|
Nizwa, quarterly, Oman: Oman Foundation for Journalism, News and Publication, issue 32, October 2002
 This last issue of this Omani quarterly points up the magazine's tendency to detach itself from current events, including only one article of contemporary relevance -- Seif Al-Rahibi's piece on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Egyptian July 1952 Revolution. Otherwise, the magazine juxtaposes a broad variety of articles on very disparate topics, from Yemeni history to the European enlightenment, "Asian despotism", Ibn Arabi, Egyptian novelist Ihsan Abdel-Quddous, and many others. Mostly translations of variable quality, these pieces are usually out of date or decontextualised, and the magazine offers little sense of the connection between them, or of how they relate to current events.
|
Sutour, monthly magazine, Cairo: Sutour Publications, issue 72, November 2002
 The main subject of the latest issue of this Cairo literary monthly is the notion of tyranny, as discussed and edited by Karim Abdel-Salam. This section of the magazine incorporates testimony from a prison official in Belgrade, capital of the former Yugoslavia, who supervised the imprisonment of former Serbian President Slobodan Milosovic on charges of war crimes. Elsewhere, Hazen Ahmed Hosni, reviewing Islamic history, discusses the emergence of the concept of the tyrant, while Yehya El-Rakhawi, writing on "the price of human development", adopts a psychoanalytical perspective on the notion of tyranny. Autocracy and the tyrannical aspects of capitalism are also discussed. In the magazine's arts section, Salah Hashem reports on the latest edition of the Cairo Film Festival, while Thanaa Hashem interviews Egyptian actor Salah El-Saadani.
|
Al-Muhit Al-Thaqafi, monthly magazine, Cairo: Ministry of Culture, issue 13, November 2002
 The principle section of the latest issue of this Ministry of Culture publication is entitled "Roots" and it includes articles relating to issues of culture, religion and heritage all considered from the perspective of origins. Cultural events covered by the magazine include the recent inauguration of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina library in Alexandria, the new edition, brought out by publishers Maktabat Al-Osra, of the Description de l'Egypte drawn up by the savants brought to Egypt by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799, the recent Cairo production of Verdi's opera Aida and the last Cairo and Ismailia film festivals. Visual culture is discussed through reports on television offerings during the month of Ramadan and on the current crisis of European cinema, faced with mounting competition from Hollywood and the United States.
|
Thaqafat, quarterly, Bahrain: Faculty of Arts, Bahrain University, issue 2, spring 2002
 The second issue of this Bahraini quarterly encompasses a range of scholarly articles from Ihsan Abbas writing on the Abbasid poet Al-Mutannabi and Abdel-Qader Faytouh writing on Averroes, to Masoud Taher discussing modern Japan in contemporary Arab thought and Abdallah Ibrahim looking at Arabic criticism and globalisation. Three studies are included in the magazine's poetry section: a discussion of Iraqi poet Badr Shaker Al-Sayyab's Unshoudat Al-Mattar; a piece on the Syrian poet Adonis; and an article on "distortion mechanisms" in modern poetic texts. Poetry included in the issue includes works by Mudhaffar Al-Nawwab, Qasem Haddad, Esam Tarshahani, and there is a long piece by Egyptian novelist Edwar El-Kharrat on artist Adly Rizkalla.
|
Books
|
|
Labiba Hashem, Qalb Al-Rajul (A Man's Heart), ed. Yumna El-Eid, Damascus: Dar Al-Mada, 2002. pp111
 After graduating from the American Girls College in Beirut, Labiba Hashem (1882-1952) -- a pioneer of Arabic literature -- moved to Cairo with her family, where her talents flowered. Starting in 1906, she produced 13 volumes of the Fatat Al-Sharq (Girl of the East) magazine, which she edited, and she was the first Arab woman to lecture at the Egyptian University in 1911 and 1912 and to work as an inspector of girls' schools in Damascus in 1919. Hashem subsequently emigrated to Latin America, where she founded the magazine Al-Sharq wal-Gharb (East and West) in Chile in 1921. Returning to Cairo in 1924, Hashem continued to publish Fatat Al-Sharq until her death 24 years later. The present volume comprises the text of her second novel, published in Cairo in 1904 and now republished in a re-edited edition by the scholar Yumna El-Eid, who also contributes an enlightening introduction. Literary and aesthetic considerations aside, this book has historical, sociological and critical relevance, dealing, in a sometimes melodramatic and sensational manner, with the histories of two families living in Cairo and Beirut.
|
Democracy as an Answer to the Dangers of Globalisation, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, trans. Amina El-Aasar, Cairo: Al-Ahram Centre for Translation and Publication, 2002. pp143
 In the course of compiling an account of the United Nations, the co-author of this book, Eve Bertello, undertook these interviews with Boutros Boutros-Ghali, former UN secretary-general and Egyptian minister of state for foreign affairs. As well as containing valuable testimony by Ghali on his time at the head of the UN, the book also contains autobiographical fragments, opinions and first-person accounts of Ghali's role both within and outside Egypt. The main thrust of Ghali's arguments is that, when imbued with a sufficient degree of democracy, globalisation is far less dangerous to the world than it might otherwise be. Soon after the events of 11 September 2001, Ghali contends, Washington adopted a "team spirit", including the opinions of other countries in its deliberations. However, this spirit of cooperation was subsequently abandoned, with the US government adopting an ever-more autocratic stance. Ghali insists that this was a mistake, and that Washington must make greater efforts to include the voices of other, less powerful parties in any decisions it makes. Only in this way, he argues, can it fight off the proponents of American isolationism and meet the challenge represented by Ossama Bin Laden.
|
Taksi Al-Kalam (Taxi of Words), Safinaz Kazim, Cairo: Egyptian Lebanese Publishing House, 2002. pp347
 A taxi is a form of transport, a way of getting from one place to another, and, in an analogous way, language is the principal channel through which human beings reach each other, exchanging knowledge and experience. Of all available means of transport, the taxi is the least constricted, travelling along no predetermined route, and this book, too, does not shy away from digression. Gripping throughout, the book incorporates carefully observed character studies as well as enjoyable anecdotes that together testify to Safinaz Kazim's experience of life and to her literary prowess. Her territory extends from the corridors of the cultural elite to the streets of popular neighbourhoods and the feelings of Egyptians abroad. She meets the challenges of all this material with admirable adaptability.
|
Al-Insan wal-Hadara (Human Beings and Civilisation), Abdel-Wahab El-Messeiri, Cairo: Dar Al-Hilal (Kitab Al-Hilal Series), 2002. pp392
 In this book the Egyptian scholar Abdel-Wahab El-Messeiri argues for the employment of complex models in the interpretation of human phenomena, ones taking political, social and economic, as well as cultural and epistemological, issues into account. Applying this notion to topics that include Zionism and Romanticism, the Intifada, anti-Semitism, the Jewish contribution to Western civilisation, etc., he manages to address many of his abiding concerns without compromising the present essay's theoretical framework.
|
Da'iman ma Ad'ou Al-Mawta (I Always Invite the Dead), Said Nouh, Cairo: Family Library, 2002. pp165
 In this, his second novel, Said Nouh displays a remarkably developed sense of pace and style, divulging a literary world with economy and without the sentimentality of the author's first novel, Kulama Ra'yt Bintan Hulwa Aqoul Ya Soad (Every time I see a Pretty Girl I call out, Soad). The novel has little plot; instead, it presents a cross-section of humanity through the examination of the lives of the inhabitants of the Cairo popular district of Bulaq, for whom classical Egyptian cinema forms an invaluable reference. All the characters receive their fair share of the author's attention, laughing, crying and fighting their mostly losing battles in unselfconscious contact with the warmth and heat of life.
|
