At a glance

A shorthand guide to recent publications compiled by Mahmoud El-Wardani

---

Magazines

Al-Hilal, monthly magazine, Cairo: Dar Al-Hilal, issue no.1, January 2003 As 2003 dawns, the latest issue of the Cairo magazine asks, "what will happen tomorrow", answers being provided by Ibrahim El-Esawi, writing on the state of independent research and Egypt in 2020, Mustafa Nabil, writing on Iraq and the future of the Middle East, and Hussein Ahmed Amin on the future of technology and the risks it brings with it. Ahmed Mohamed Saleh writes on the future of the Internet and Mustafa Darwish on Egyptian cinema over the next few decades. The magazine's feature, "Dialogue Ring" this month boasts both Rushdi Said and Galal Amin, with Mustafa Sweif offering new insights into right-wing violence and sociologist Ahmed Abu-Zeid publishing parts of his conversations with vernacular Egyptian poet Ahmed Fouad Negm.

Fusoul, quarterly review of books, Cairo: General Egyptian Book Organisation, issue no.60, summer- autumn 2002 Folk culture and modernism is the subject of this double issue of the prestigious Cairo quarterly. The proceedings of a seminar on this topic, to which editors Hoda Wasfi, Mohamed El-Kurdi and Mohamed Wasim contributed, are included, as are papers by Ahmed Morsi, Hassan Teleb, Abdel-Hamid Hawwas, Aliaa Shukri, Mohamed El- Gohari and Youssri El-Guindi. Other articles look at the connections between folk culture and modernism, with Mohamed El-Gohari writing from a folkore-studies perspective on creativity and heritage, Abdel-Rahman El- Shafie on his experience with the famous text Ali Al- Zi'baq, Khalda Hamed on the American soap opera Dallas. The issue also includes interesting translations, as well as a piece by Eid Balba' on the restrictive effects of grammar on the development of Arabic rhetoric and a piece by novelist Khairi Shalabi on genetic criticism.

Sutour, monthly magazine, Cairo: Sutour Publications, issue no.74, January 2003 "Neither science nor dreams" is the title of the current issue of this monthly Cairo magazine, which includes articles ranging from a piece on the failure of the national dream to the "death of dreams of redemption" through science. Contributors to this section of the magazine include Yehya El-Rakhawi, Ahmed Mohamed Saleh and Azzazi Ali Azzazi. Other topics looked at are the subjugation of the Arab peoples, the benefits of old age and the Paris-based sculptor Osman Sou.

Adab wa Naqd, monthly magazine, Cairo: Tagammu' Party, issue no.209, January 2003 This current issue of this Cairo critical monthly includes a selection from the work of the Australia-based Lebanese poet Wadie Saada. Elsewhere, Ali Mabrouk writes on versions of democracy, Azmi Bishara on public religiosity and Mohamed Hafez Diab on democracy and religion. Other articles range from a report on a Cairo Centre for Human Rights workshop on democracy and Islam, to literary texts by Edwar El-Kharrat and Atef Soliman.

Al-Adaab, monthly magazine, Beirut: Dar Al-Adaab, issue no.11, vol. no.50, November 2002 The last issue of this Beirut magazine was banned in Egypt as a result of the magazine's carrying a piece on censorship in the country. However, the present issue, not banned, contains the second installment of this investigation, giving readers the chance to digest a part of this valuable series on censorship in Arab countries. Introduced by Ahmed El-Khamisi, the section includes contributions from Karem Yehya on censorship of the press, Hussein Attia on censorship of the creative arts and Ahmed Youssef on censorship of the cinema. Egyptian critic Samia Mehrez provides an account of her experience teaching Moroccan novelist Mohamed Shoukri's For Bread Alone at the American University in Cairo, and the magazine publishes selections from Edward Said's address to AUC students on the same topic. Novelist Sonallah Ibrahim writes on the banning of his first novel, The Smell of It, in the 1960s, while Yasser Shaaban provides a similar account of the more recent banning of his own novel, Sons of the Romantic Fault. Hamdi Abu-Golail, editorial secretary of the division of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture responsible for the publication of Syrian novelist Haydar Haydar's A Banquet for Seaweed in a state-sponsored series, also testifies, and the magazine offers extensive investigative reporting on publishing houses whose publications have been subjected to censorship. The issue also includes an essay on oppression at the Juwaida Prison in Jordan by Hesham Al-Bustani, and a study on the image of Arabs in Israel by Tawfik Al-Sawwaf.

Al-'Ahd Al-Aati, occasional newsletter, Cairo: Human Rights Legal Aid Association, issue no.3, December 2002 The title of the latest issue of this valuable occasional publication produced by the Human Rights Legal Aid Association is "September: the Catastrophe and its Reverberations", and in addition to reports on various human-rights abuses, especially in connection with the events of 11 September, the magazine offers a study by Adli Eleiwa on American policy and Islamic radicalism. Other reports include an account of the yearly report on human rights produced by the international pressure group Amnesty International, as well as pieces on the 2002 UN Human Development Report and on the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights Report. There are eight pages of news on human-rights abuses in Egypt, and a further five on abuses elsewhere in the world.

Nour, occasional review of books, Cairo: Nour Organisation for Arab Women's Studies, issue no.19, autumn 2002 This women's studies quarterly publishes reviews and comment on books by or about women, and includes pieces on Seza Qasem's The Reader and the Text, Marilyn Booth's Famous Women, Hanan El-Sheikh's This is London, Somaya Ramadan's Violet Leaves and Hala El-Badr's Some Woman. Elsewhere, Mohamed El- Barbari reviews An Introduction to Women's Issues, Sherine Abul-Naga writes on prostitution, and Mahmoud Amin El-Alim reviews Radwa Ashour's Memory Hunters. Artist Adli Rizkalla profiles the artist Shalabeya.

Books

Rajul Ablah, Imra'a Tafiha (Silly Man, Frivolous Woman), Mohamed Nagui, Cairo: Dar Al-Hilal (Hilal Novels Series), 2002. pp142 The fifth novel by a remarkable writer, this book depicts a man and a woman at the threshold of old age. The man, a veteran of great visions to which he devoted his youth, suffering prison, persecution and loss as a result, is now tired and beset by frivolity, discovering that he has become the prisoner of his own daily life. The woman, on the other hand, is a mistress of detail, desperately doing battle to achieve minor gains and not above finding the courage to buy vegetables or exterminate cockroaches. She avoids serious issues because she does not understand them. This novel describes these two characters' late-in-the-day meeting, during which they exchange roles and explore the life they decide to live together towards the end of their lives.

Al-Hiwar Al-Islami Al-Masihi: Ru'ya Jadida (Islamic-Christian Dialogue: A New Vision), Hani Labib, Cairo: Al-Shurouq International Library, 2002. pp35 This slim volume on inter-religious dialogue calls on elites, both religious and secular, to reach agreement on principles prior to undertaking dialogue between religions, which the writer believes to be necessary. Among these principles are a respect for pluralism as a step towards democracy and the separation of politics and religion. This, the author explains, does not mean the marginalisation of religion, but rather means refraining from favouring one religion at the expense of another. The importance of inter-religious dialogue, the author insists, comes from the need to support civil rights and develop a society in which the concept of citizenship is fully operative. Proper understanding of religion requires that religious convictions and rituals be respected, he says, and Muslim-Christian relations should be dealt with using the same fair-minded discourse, equally stressing the belonging of all Egyptians, regardless of religion, to the same nation and to the traditions of Arab civilisation.

Fajr Al-Masrah (The Dawn of Theatre), Edwar El- Kharrat, Cairo: Dar Al-Bustani for Publication and Distribution, 2003. pp191 Edwar El-Kharrat has produced dozens of novels, short-story collections, books of criticism and translations. However, he has not written on drama. This, his latest book, fills this lacunae in the author's work, containing pieces on the roots of theatre, which El- Kharrat argues begin with primeval rituals through which human beings sought to appease the forces of nature and to interact with and invoke hidden powers. Two essays are devoted to the religious and civil theatre of Ancient Egypt, following which El-Kharrat progresses to Ancient Greek theatre, which he describes in glowing terms as having to do with man's need to "interrogate the gods". This theatre, El-Kharrat says, "is the human being's private glory, since he himself participates in the process of creation, making the laws that drive a private world of his own creation and forging the rules governing dramatic art".

Al-Muwazana Al-Amma lil-Dawla wa Huqouq Al-Insan (The State Budget and Human Rights), Abdel-Khaleq Farouk, Cairo: Human Rights Legal Aid Association, 2002. pp272 Introducing this book, the publisher indicates that the state budget for education, health and culture is linked to human rights, and the author does not rest content with giving the official figures but rather tries to work out the sums that reach citizens, excluding money spent on the administration. The study also includes analyses of the labour market and of institutions responsible for providing services to the public, as well as of their failures and problems.

Satan Abyad (White Satin), Enaya Gaber, Beirut: Dar Riyad Al-Rayis, 2002. pp191 The author of this collection of poems, Enaya Gaber, belongs to a generation of avant-garde authors who employ prose as a medium for poetic expression, and in common with other members of her generation she seeks to be rid of the traditional taf'ila heritage of Arab poetics, establishing a new kind of poem that celebrates the details "floating on the surface of life". Also in common with other members of her generation, she relies on a dispassionate idiom that avoids explicit emotion and ornament. "My heart," she writes, "Full of machine guns and churches/At night, the neighing of horses/Obscure times and nail holes/Sighs deeply/Its ribs collapsing/Like the foundations of an old building."

Rihla Ila A'ali Al-Nil Al-Abyad (A Journey to the Ends of the White Nile), Colonel Selim Qubtan, ed. Nouri Al- Jarrah, Abu-Dhabi, Beirut: Dar Al-Sweidi and the Arab Foundation for Studies and Publication, 2002. pp114 One of a fascinating new series entitled "Scaling Horizons", aiming to make available the classics of travel writing in Arabic and paying particular attention to the last two centuries, this book comprises an account of one of the earliest exploratory journeys to the sources of the Nile undertaken by an Egyptian officer in 1839-40. The journey began in Khartoum, Sudan, on the orders of Mohamed Ali Pasha, and it lasted for 135 days, including more than 400 men.