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The entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, by Tristram Ellis (source: Palestine and Egypt under the Ottomans, Hisham Khatib, AUC Press, 2003)
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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.2, February 2003
The well-known Cairo magazine departs from its usual format this month, including neither its central section nor the regular articles by Mustafa Souief and Abdel-Rahman Shaker and offering instead a variety of articles and reviews. Writing on the occasion of the 35th Cairo Book Fair, Al-Hilal's Editor-in-Chief Mustafa Nabil wonders whether the future will bring the disappearance of books, and Ahmed Mohamed Saleh explores different scenarios for books in the coming century. Elsewhere in the magazine, columnist Safinaz Kazim examines the July 1940 issue of Al-Hilal, looking at the magazine's role in war time, and Salah El-Marakbi contributes a letter from America on Arab-Jewish relations. The issue also includes its usual complement of essays and fiction.
Awraq Ishterakeya, monthly magazine, Cairo: Centre for Socialist Studies, issue no.1, January 2003
The first issue of this magazine published by the Centre for Socialist Studies opens with a comprehensive section on Iraq, Kamil Dagher, Sameh Naguib, Gamal Abdel- Aziz, Manar Hussein and Hamdi Abdel-Aziz looking at a range of topics from the future of the American empire to the politics of oil. The issue also offers an assessment by Mustafa Bassyouni of the new labour law under discussion in the Egyptian parliament, the current crisis in Venezuela, the anti-globalisation movement and Palestinian resistance being among the other topics looked at.
Al-Aadab, monthly magazine, Beirut: Dar Al-Aadab, vol.51, issue no.1-2, January-February 2003
The most recent issue of this Lebanese magazine includes two principal sections, "Confronting war on Iraq" and "Lebanon through Syrian eyes". The first of these, put together by Editor-in-Chief Samah Idris, features Iraqi writers Alaa El-Lafi and Abdel-Amir El-Rokabi on issues ranging from the geopolitical dimension of the conflict to the national movement in Iraq and taking in discussions of the American intelligentsia's failure to back the Iraqi people and Iraq and Turkey's difficult relations, as well as two short stories. The second section comprises the first instalment of a series entitled "New Arab Identity", each part of which will present a perspective on the culture of one Arab country written by commentators from another. Thus, in this issue Syrian writers Burhan Ghalyoun and Shamseddin Al-Ladhiqani look at aspects of Syrian-Lebanese relations, the section also including the proceedings of a seminar to which many Syrian figures contributed.
Fikr wa Fann, triannual magazine, Cairo: Goethe Institut, issue no.76, January 2003
The latest issue of the Goethe Institute's publication in Arabic includes a collection of articles on the occasion of the 100-day art exhibition in Kassel, Germany. Here, as elsewhere in the magazine, the magazine emphasises Arab- German relations. The topic of globalisation occupies by far the greater part of the rest of the magazine, with topics ranging from the "art work in the age of mechanical reproduction", a subject made famous by the German writer Walter Benjamin, to an interview with the US-based Iranian photographer Sherine Nashat and an article on "literature as a defence of history". The Second Berlin Arts Festival and the Tunisian film Harir Akhdar (Green Silk) are among other recent events reviewed.
Sutour, monthly magazine, Cairo: Sutour Publications, issue no.75, February 2003
In its principal section, "Autocracy Unbound", the latest issue of this Cairo monthly magazine deals, often obliquely, with the impending war on Iraq: "mediaeval politics", "paralysed societies" and "information exclusion" are among the catch phrases used in articles by Mohamed El-Khouli, Ahmed Mohamed Saleh, Ezzat El-Qamhawi, Azzazi Ali Azzazi and others. The magazine's arts department is devoted to the late Egyptian actress Sanaa Gamil, Ibrahim El- Dessouqi writing on Zahrat Al-Siba (The Flower of Youth), Gamil's best known early play, and Magda Maurice on "the genius of presence". There is also an interview on Gamil's career with director Saad Ardash.
Sawasiya, occasional newsletter, Cairo: Cairo Centre for Human Rights Studies, issue no.47, 2002
The most recent issue of this magazine published by the Cairo Centre for Human Rights is devoted to the subject of Israeli Arabs, the magazine publishing papers from a symposium the Centre organised entitled "the Palestinians of 1948 knock on the doors of the world." Among these are papers by Bassel Ghattas, Esam Abu-Rayya and Khaled Khalil on problems facing Israeli Arab NGOs, violence in the Hebrew media and the limits of democracy, and the present state of Arab villages located within the 1948 borders of Palestine.
Books
Tarikh Baburshah (History of Babur Shah), Dhahieruddin Baburshah, trans. Magda Makhlouf, Cairo: Arab Horizons Publications, 2002. pp349
Written in Turkish during the 10th century of the Hijra, this book is an indispensable source for anyone interested in the Muslim dynasty of Taymour, otherwise known as the Mogul Empire in India. Originally intended as an autobiography of Baburshah, founder of the dynasty, the text has never been translated into Arabic despite its appearance in several European languages. Baburshah dives straight into his story, starting with his reign over Ferghana in Central Asia at the age of 12. Even though he follows the narrative conventions of the time, relating events in chronicle form, the writer, as the translator notes in her invaluable introduction, emerges more as a poet-philosopher than as a politician.
Rushdie Saleh wal-Fulklour Al-Misri (Rushdie Saleh and Egyptian Folklore), Mohamed El-Gohari, Cairo: Cairo University, Faculty of Arts Centre for Social Studies and Research, 2003. pp629
The late scholar and critic Rushdie Saleh played an important role in folklore studies in Egypt over a period of 40 years. This comprehensive tome is the culmination of a long-term project undertaken by the Centre for Social Studies and Research at Cairo University aiming to clarify Saleh's role and later influence on folklore studies. The first section includes a biography of Saleh, an account of his perspective on folklore, a review of his methodology and a short history of folklore studies in Egypt. The second section collects articles and studies by Saleh that have been previously published in a variety of magazines and periodicals, and the third compiles articles and commentaries written about him, as well as assessments of his achievements. Particular, and welcome, emphasis is placed on Saleh's work in founding a national archive of folklore and a foundation for folklore and development.
Rayhana, Maysoun Saqr, Cairo: Dar Al-Hilal (Al-Hilal Novels Series), 2003. pp226
A poet and artist with many poetry collections and exhibitions to her name, the Emirates writer Maysoun Saqr has now published her first novel, Rayhana. It has long seemed that Saqr's major themes -- disappointment with her generation and a desire for radical change -- were apt to burst from the confined space of her poems, and Rayhana, a novel drawing on the author's personal experience, gives Saqr a larger canvas. Set between Cairo and the United Arab Emirates, and describing various historical events, the novel draws upon the techniques of postmodernism in its presentation of different voices, time periods, linguistic styles and dialects, describing both rich and poor characters with unflagging determination.
Ya'mal Munadiyan lil-Arwah (He Works as a Caller of Souls), Ashraf Youssef, Cairo: Sharqiat, 2003. pp89
This collection of prose poems, Ashraf Youssef's third, avoids large questions in favour of the humdrum concerns of day-to- day existence, forging a fresh and unpretentious idiom in which to do so. As in Youssef's previous collections, Lailat 30 Fibrayir (The Night of 30 February (1995)) and Ubour Sahaba Bayna Madinatain (A Cloud's Passage Between Two Cities (1997)), the poems are bare utterances, interrogative gestures to the most exacting standards, that include political and historical dimensions. "After every failed demonstration," Youssef writes, "I become a giant/ With the tip of my pencil/ I cross out the emergency laws/ Cross out my name/ Rearrange my country/ My father next to my mother/ Swell in size/ Testimony to the revolution/ Dear comrades/ I am no traitor/ I just tremble when the lions by Qasr Al-Nil Bridge roar..."
Khulwat Al-Ghalban (The Pauper's Seclusion), Ibrahim Aslan, Cairo: Dar Al- Shurouq, 2003. pp135
Ibrahim Aslan is one of the best known writers of the "generation of the 1960s", having achieved considerable success in his novels and short stories. In this book, he also proves himself to be a significant essayist, drawing on experience with other literary forms to develop journalistic writing that identifies telling moments and draws out their significance in the manner of some contemporary poetry. In Khulwat Al- Ghalban Aslan offers 22 portraits, or intimate accounts, of literary figures he has encountered, from writer Mohamed Hafez Ragab to Iraqi poet Abdel-Wahab Al-Bayati, and from Naguib Mahfouz to Youssef Idris, Gabriel-Garcia Marquez and Jorge Amado. A masterful stylist, Aslan reveals the most unusual things in the most ordinary interactions, affording readers a series of admirably succinct portraits.
Al-Hayah Al-Hizbiya fi Turkia (Party Life in Turkey), Abdel-Aziz Mohamed Awadalla, Cairo: Cairo University Centre for Eastern Studies, 2003. pp204
This book documents the emergence of political parties in Turkey prior to the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, following the development of democratic life in the nascent Turkish Republic of the 1920s to the present. The book pays particular attention to political pluralism, the writer describing the history of modern Turkish political parties as well as their different platforms and some of the issues that have most divided political life in Turkey, notably secularism and the role of the military in politics. The book also includes appendices on Turkish heads of state from the 1920s to the present, Turkish elections from 1946 to 1991, and a list of the country's political parties from 1923 to 1952, a particularly significant period from an Egyptian perspective.
Al-Hadiqa Al-Sirriya (The Secret Garden), Mohamed Al-Qaisi, Beirut: Dar Al-Aadab, 2002. pp414
Between 1968 and 1991 the Palestinian poet Mohamed Al-Qaisi produced 18 collections of poetry, moving to the novel only after he had established himself as a poet. The present novel, an experimental, poetic and often nostalgic text, is testimony to Al-Qaisi's versatility. "This novel is about love and about the alienation of language," one Palestinian critic has written, "it embraces a human being who can translate his love into language and translate language into a narrative of love." Language, the novel's true protagonist, occupies the lover-narrator's voice, searching ceaselessly for the loved one. However, despite its intensity finally it demonstrates a failure to register the passion that it seeks to portray.
Bahjat Al-'Ama (The Bliss of Being Blind), Yasser Ibrahim, Cairo: Miret Publications, 2003. pp152
This novel, Yasser Ibrahim's first, is written with less sense than sensitivity, even if there is enough of the former to sustain the narrative. The protagonist is a blind man; and the stories are told both through his voice and through that of a sighted friend, the reader slowly apprehending a world of "blind" consumption. From sex to friendship and from marriage to work, the overriding principle of the world the two characters occupy is that one should consume as much as possible in as little time as possible. Perhaps the novel suffers from certain restrictions with regard to its recreation of the blind man's world: had Ibrahim let the blind man express himself fully, without feeling the compulsion to look over his shoulder, as it were, perhaps the novel would have flowed more pleasingly. Ibrahim has also written two collections of short stories: Lahm Al-Hayy (Living Flesh, 1993) and Al-Taraf Al-Azraq min Al-Tayf (The Blue Edge of the Rainbow, 1996).
