At a glance

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

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Magazines:

Al-Kotob: Wujhat Nazar, monthly review of books, Cairo: Egyptian Company for Arab and International Publication, issue no. 60, January 2004 In the opening article of the latest issue of the Cairo monthly Wujhat Nazar Salama Ahmed Salama calls 2003 "the year of the shedding of masks", posing a number of questions to which he hopes to find answers in 2004: will the Iraqi resistance die down or will it gain in intensity; will the public trial of Saddam divulge the secrets of his association with the West; will the democratic model the West is trying to impose on the region prove successful? Translations also abound in this issue, the highlight being an article by Charles Johnson on the war business, in which the writer discusses profits gained from the destruction of Iraq and exposes the operations of both the oil and the arms industry. Abdel-A'lim Al-Abyad likewise reviews Charles Campbell's new book When Religion Becomes Evil, a stimulating take on the ideology of religion in contemporary international relations. Outside the political arena, the issue includes many other remarkable contributions. Of these the most eye-catching include Ibrahim Abdel-Aziz on Taha Hussein's correspondence with his son Mo'nis, Radwa Ashour on Bayan Nuwaihid Al-Hout's Sabra and Shatila: September 1982 and Mina Malak Abdel-Badie' on the recent discovery of 13 Coptic manuscripts written in the first four centuries AD.

Al-Hilal, monthly magazine, Cairo: Dar Al-Hilal, issue no. 1, January 2004 This month the prestigious monthly is unusually extroverted, taking as its central themes issues that are currently preoccupying many intellectuals. Many writers and scholars have contributed articles in response to the question, "What are you preoccupied with these days?" including Abdel-Wahab El-Messiri on "objectivity and inculcation" in daily life, Galal Amin on neo-imperialism as manifested in the current American occupation of Iraq, Gamil Mattar (surprisingly) on Italian democracy and Safynaz Kazem on current events in Palestine and Iraq. The issue also includes a comprehensive study by Assem El-Dessouqi of Mohamed Hassanein Heikal's contributions as a historian. To celebrate Coptic Christmas, Maher Shafik discusses aspects of Coptic life. Besides these articles, the issue includes Al-Hilal's usual brew of views, reviews and literary texts.

Sutour, monthly magazine, Cairo: Sutour Publications, issue no. 86, January 2004 The opening section of the most recent issue of Sutour is devoted to translations of several reports from various parts of the world on the arrest of Saddam Hussein, affording a stimulating variety of perspectives. The issue's central folio, entitled "Occupations start on the inside", includes an article on the present historical moment in Ramallah by John Berger, in which the writer reports on his first-hand experience of the Palestinians' "inexplicable strength". The Pakistani-English writer Tariq Ali wonders how Iraqi children feel about the US-led invasion and occupation, while Charles Glass, in Damascus, wonders whether Syria is next. Ahmed Mohamed Saleh extends the issue further to the "occupation of the mind", discussing what he considers to be the Arabs' increasing inability to enjoy life. Karim Abdel-Salam interviews economist Mohamed Duweidar, who believes that without resistance of some kind the future is bound to remain dark. Many other writers also make interesting contributions in answer to questions about Arab sovereignty, western intervention and the future of the Arab economies.

Al-Arabi, monthly magazine, Kuwait: Ministry of Information issue no. 542, January 2004 In the editorial that opens the latest issue of the high-brow monthly editor Soliman Al-Askari discusses "the community of knowledge", seeing this as a properly Arab objective, which, if not reached, will mean that the Arab world will undoubtedly fall further behind the rest of the world. Elsewhere in the issue, Qasem Abdel-Qasem discusses the concept of tolerance, while Abdel-Malak Khalaf Al-Tamimi asks whether journalism is valid source material for the historian. In a stimulating article relevant to the previous two, Raja Bahloul broaches the question of democracy in Islam and the relation between democracy and secularism. The issue includes a long, amply illustrated travel piece entitled "Havana, a City under Siege", as well as a conversation between Jihad Fadel and Amin Malouf. The rest of the issue is devoted to Al-Arabi's usual mix of articles: Abdel-Wahab Al-Shaikhali's reminiscences of Iraqi poet Badr Shaker Al-Sayyab, an extended report on the Egyptian Council for Culture's 2003 Novelists Conference, Ihab El-Hadari's extended account of the history of smuggling cultural objects out of Egypt and Mahmoud Abu-Zeid on time travel, among others.

Al-Adab, monthly magazine, Beirut: Dar Al-Adab, vol no. 51, November and December 2003 This issue of the Beirut monthly includes two central folios, the first of which, introduced by the editor, Samah Idris, is on the recent death of Edward Said. It includes a wide range of interesting articles on the life and work of the Palestinian-American scholar: Ahmed Dalal on Said's loyalties, Osama Maqdisi on Said's contribution to the history of the Middle East, Asaad Abu-Khalil on political vs objective knowledge in Said's thought, Samia Mehrez on "what I never told Said", Sinan Anton on Said the perpetual traveler, Joseph Masaad on Said's stay in Ithaca, and many others. The second folio, on Arab identity, includes a wealth of contributions to questions concerning the current status of the Arabs, the possibility of resuscitating Arab nationalism or the pan-Arab dream, and the role of Arab intellectuals. Taken together, the two folios make for a rich diet of material that could be seen as rendering the rest of the issue's articles on a small scattering of topics superfluous.

Adab wa Naqd, monthly magazine, Cairo: Tagammu' Party, issue no. 220, December 2003 This issue of the left-wing monthly opens with two studies, the first on the concepts of nationality and the nation by Samir Amin, and the second on the absence of ideology in the Arab world by Mohamed Abdel-Shafie' Eissa. The issue's folio, entitled "First Places", includes testimonies by novelists and short-story writers on the places in which they grew up or came into their own: these include Ahmed Abu-Khneigar on the Nubian community in which he grew up, Hassan Dawoud on Beirut, "a late love story", and Ghada Nabil on Ismailia, among others. This month, the magazine's "Small Diwan" is devoted to Badie' Khairi, the vernacular poet and performance artist.

Awraq Ishterakiya, occasional magazine, Cairo: Centre for Socialist Studies, issue no. 4, November and December 2003 The current issue of this magazine opens with a comprehensive file on socialism in Egypt, to which many writers have contributed: Sameh Naguib on the conditions required for the existence of a viable left; Gamal Gabr on the continued existence of a large and dispossessed proletariat; Khaled El-Sawi on the Egyptian bourgeoisie; and others. In the same context, Dina Heshmat interviews Egyptian economist Samir Amin. The issue also includes several reports from abroad -- on the winds of change in Saudi Arabia, Syria under threat, the Intifada in its third year, the Iraqi resistance and upheavals in Bolivia. Of the many other articles included, the highlights are an article by Aida Seif El-Dawla on the "best-known instances of working-class suicide", a new perspective on the 1917 October Revolution by Mansour Bayoumi, an obituary of Edward Said by Amina Rashid and interviews with novelist Sonallah Ibrahim by Mahmoud Qurani and filmmaker Dawoud Abdel-Sayed by Khaled El-Sawi.

Books

Nakbat Al-Iraq: Al-Athaar Al-Siyasiya wal-Iqtisadiya (Iraq's Defeat: Political and Economic Repercussions), Ahmed El-Sayed El-Naggar et al, Cairo: Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, 2003. pp420 Edited by Ahmed El-Sayed El-Naggar, this is a comprehensive analysis of the political restructuring of the region to which the US-led invasion of Iraq has given rise. In his introduction the editor points out that the book is intended to explore the various dimensions of the American invasion of Iraq and attempts to make out the contours of the future in the light of the fact that neighbouring Arab regimes have sometimes differed from Saddam's only in degree. Eleven writers contribute to the book, discussing their respective topics of expertise. Highlights are: Gamal Abdel-Gawwad on the balance of power within Iraq, Ahmed El-Said Idris on the interrelation of economic and political repercussions, Amr Elchoubaki on the new regional order, Amr Hashem Rabie' on the occupation's political effects on Egypt, Ahmed El-Naggar on the occupation's relevance to Arab economies, Abdel-Alim Mohamed on the effect of Baghdad's fall on the future of the United Nations, Mustafa El-Labbad on its effect on Turkey.

Kitaba: Ru'a wa Dhat (Writing: Visions and Self), Safynaz Kazem, Cairo: General Egyptian Book Organisation, 2004. pp319 This is arguably the richest introduction to one of Egypt's best-known female writers, Safynaz Kazem, whose career has been almost wholly in non-fiction. A collection of 39 articles that displays not only Kazem's remarkable range of interests but also her engaging, anecdotal vitality and many aspects of her rich and varied experience, the collection opens with personal pieces, discussing, for example, the author's 60th birthday and her initial connection with writing. It then progresses to an eclectic series of portraits of cultural figures whose contribution Kazem evaluates, occasionally reporting on her personal or professional encounters with them. These figures include, among others, filmmakers Tawfik Saleh and Mohamed Khan, the pioneer Egyptian cartoonist Abdel-Samie', popular Iraqi singer Kazim Al-Saher and even Czech novelist Milan Kundera.

Mariam Al-Hakaya (Mariam of the Stories), Ulwiya Subh, Beirut: Dar Al-Adab, 2004. pp426 Only two years after the initial appearance of novelist Ulwiya Subh's widely discussed novel Mariam Al-Hakaya a reprint has been issued. In dealing with the emotional relations between men and women -- its principal theme -- the novel shows little boldness or openness. What it does show, however, is a serious, level-headed approach to the echoes of the Lebanese Civil War as these continue to sound in individual lives. Subh's treatment is both different and effective: the protagonist offers an extended elegy for the Lebanese both before and during the war, prior to the final slip into insanity when indiscriminate killing based on ethnicity or religious affiliation became the order of the day. The novel concludes with the notion that despite the peace that now prevails, the horrors that took place during the war effectively destroyed pre-war Lebanon.

Al-Jasad bila Mu'alim (The Body without a Teacher), Abbas Baydoun, Beirut: Dar Al-Adab, 2004. pp95 Abbas Baydoun has produced ten collections of poems and one novel, Tahlil Al-Dam (Blood Test). The title of this, his latest collection of poems, is borrowed from René Char, as the poet himself indicates. The poems in the collection are divided into three sections entitled, respectively, "A Beautiful Leaf they Thought Dead", "The Body without a Teacher" and "Maddening Patience". Here, as elsewhere, Baydoun's work is lyrical and sedate, with stylistic roots firmly in the old traditions of poetry and a thoroughly contemporary orientation.

Erfouh bil-Huzn (They Knew him by Sadness), Omar El-Taher, Cairo: Miret for Publication and Information, 2003. pp102 A new generation of Egyptian vernacular poets has adopted the prose poem as a medium of choice, thereby opting for difficulty since vernacular poetry is associated at once with speech rhythms and often romantic sentiments as well as oppositional statements and sarcasm targeting those in power. Such, indeed, has been the tradition in which anyone who opts for colloquial Arabic finds himself working. However, this generation has employed the vernacular to the same ends as those associated with poetry in standard Arabic: to document the minutiae of daily life and the contents of the psyche. In his two previous books, Omar El-Taher, a vernacular poet, had sometimes employed metre and even rhyme. However, here he sheds every remnant of formal rhythm, opting instead for the more fluid musicality at which he excels. The result is something to be truly marvelled at -- prose poetry in colloquial Arabic that maintains all the literary refinement and intellectual interest of its standard counterpart without giving up any of the instant appeal traditionally associated with vernacular verse.

Al-Shaytan fi Haql Al-Tout (Satan in the Blackberry Field), Mahmoud Qurani, Cairo: Miret for Information and Publication, 2004. pp117 Poet Mahmoud Qurani has published four collections of poems: Hamamat Al-Inshad (Song Pigeons, 1996) Hawaa Shajaraat Al-Aalam (Air of the World's Trees, 1998), Khuyoul ala Qatifat Al-Bait (Horses on the House's Velvet, 1999) and Turuq Tayiba lil-Hufaah (Pleasant Paths for the Barefoot, 2000). In this, his fifth book, Qurani reaches the summit of his poetic project, and the book is something of a step into the unknown as well as the clearest, most articulate distillation of his past efforts. While carefully avoiding any form of rhetoric, Qurani gives the prose poems of which this book is composed a larger-than-life resonance, producing confessional writing of outstanding honesty.