Every year gardeners across the world go to extravagant lengths to grow the perfect tulip, putting them in the company of erstwhile Ottoman pashas and sultans, writes David Tresilian in Amsterdam

As a regular reader of The Spectator Jill Kamil found, in the Issue of 26 March 2011, the winners of Competition No. 2690. Readers had been invited to submit quatrains reflecting on current events in the Middle East in the style of Edward FitzGerald/Omar Khayyam and she was enchanted with the results. They are here reproduced for Al-Ahram Weekly readers by kind permission of The Spectator (Lucy Vickery lucy@spectator.co.uk)

Ati Metwaly finds equivocal solace at the Opera

By Mona Anis

By Soha Hesham

Egypt in the Era of Hosni Mubarak 1981-2011 (2011) by Galal Amin. The American University in Cairo Press, Cairo, New York

There is a political atmosphere at this year's Venice Biennale, referencing the Egyptian and Arab revolutions, writes Nevine El-Aref >

Egypt is represented in this year's Venice Biennale by the evocative artwork of the Egyptian Revolution created by Ahmed Bassiouni, who was killed on the Friday of Anger. Reham El-Adawi reports