El-Deeb at work

NOVELIST Alaa El-Deeb submitted his resignation as secretary of the Fiction Committee of the Supreme Council for Culture. He cited other obligations as the reason, saying he has nearly completed another short novel and is at the same time working on a new translation of the Tao Te Ching, a translation of which he published a few years ago.

While his first translation, revised by his brother Badr El-Deeb, was in the form of poetry, the new text, to be accompanied by new drawings by Adam Henein, is a more prosaic affair which abandons formal beauty in favour of greater clarity and concision.

Children's books

THE NINTH Children's Book Fair opened yesterday at the fair grounds, Nasr City. Mrs Mubarak inaugurated the fair, in the company of Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni, touring the fair grounds and meeting with prominent intellectual figures with whom she discussed issues relating to children's culture and the business of writing for the young.

General Egyptian Book Organisation (GEBO) Chairman Samir Sarhan announced that this year 200 publishers from 22 countries will showcase some 13,000 recent and new titles for children. A series of seminars will be held on the fringe of the fair to discuss books published by GEBO and the Family Library, in the presence of both authors and children. Titles include Shawqi Hegab's Duqduq, Nazih Girgis's Mahrajan Al- Hayawanat (Festival of the Animals), Amr Sami's Bakkar series and Fatma El- Maadoul's Khutout wa Dawa'er (Lines and Circles).

Al-Ahram is displaying 2,000 titles, published by both the Ahram Centre for Translation and Publication and foreign publishers represented by the institution.

Museum books

THE AUC Press celebrated the centenary of the Egyptian Museum by launching several publications relating to Ancient Egypt, Mustafa El-Minshawi reports. These include Zahi Hawwas's Hidden Treasures of the Egyptian Museum, a pocket-sized edition of the British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, Egyptology at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century (which sums up the proceedings of the Eighth Egyptology Conference, held in Cairo in 2002) and a 2003 Ancient Egypt calendar.

Upper Egyptian opera

THE CAIRO Opera House's presence this week extends to Qena, where the Cairo Opera Festival opened on Sunday. Besides the musical performances held at the Qena Cultural Palace and the South Valley University auditorium, the festival features a photography exhibition and several seminars centred on current issues. Participants include politician Osama El-Baz, actor Yehya El-Fakharani, vernacular poet Abdel-Rahman El-Abnoudi and the National Arab Orchestra directed by Selim Sahab.

Resonant chambers

THE FIRST Egyptian Chamber Music Festival was inaugurated on Tuesday by Fawzi Fahmi, head of the Arts Academy, at the Conservatoire headquarters in Haram. A three-day event, the festival provided several small ensembles with the opportunity to perform.

Abaza in Sanaa

AT THE Egyptian Cultural Centre in Sanaa, Yemen, a week of screenings of classic films starring late Egyptian actor Rushdie Abaza commenced on Saturday. Present at the opening was Egyptian Cultural Attaché Hamdi Abdalla. Judging by the Yemeni response, Abaza's popularity in Sanaa is indisputable. The films featured provide the added benefit of giving Yemeni audiences a taste of the work of some of Egypt's best directors, including Henri Barakat and Fatin Abdel- Wahab.

UN culture

A UN GENERAL Assembly meeting last week marked the end of 2002, the "year of cultural heritage". Stressing the role of UNESCO and the need for global cooperation, Assembly President Jan Kavan expressed hopes that efforts undertaken throughout 2002 would result in increased awareness of the importance of culture as "the mirror of humanity".

Shooting Klifti

DIRECTOR Mohamed Khan and director of photography Tarek El-Telmesani have started shooting Klifti (Egyptian slang for conman), a film starring Basem Samra and Rola Mahmoud. The film is being shot using digital video.

Van Goghs lost

TWO VALUABLE paintings by Vincent Van Gogh were stolen from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam last week. The paintings, View of the Sea at Scheveningen and Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church at Nuenen, are among the painter's earliest works, from 1882 and 1884 respectively.

The Van Gogh Museum is home to more than 200 paintings and 500 drawings by the Dutch post-Impressionist who committed suicide in France in 1890, and is one of the world's most security conscious institutions.

Oweiss exhibition

IN THE United Arab Emirates a special permanent exhibition is being set up to showcase the works of all the winners of the annual Oweiss Awards. Egyptian novelist Mohamed El-Bosatie will fly to the UAE early next month to attend the inaugural celebrations. Previous Oweiss winners from Egypt include El-Bosatie himself, as well as Abdel-Wahab El-Messiri and Gamal El-Ghitani.

Egypt and Italy

EGYPTIAN and Italian cultural authorities are currently preparing for a year of Egyptian-Italian cultural cooperation under the title "Egypt and Italy Shared Horizons." The Italian events will begin next April and will include seminars and roundtables discussing the similarities between Egyptian and Italian cultures. Egyptian events will begin in Italy next June and will focus on the role of Arab civilisation in world civilisation and the attempts to build bridges between these various cultures.

Participants are expected to include Ahmed Mustagir, Abdel-Moneim Telema, Mahmoud Mekki, Adli Rizkallah and Gaber Asfour.

By Youssef Rakha