Marhab Darwish
PALESTINIAN poet Mahmoud Darwish is guest of honour of the American University in Cairo's Department of Arabic Studies this year. Darwish will read a selection of his poetry at AUC's Ewart Hall on 16 December.The event comes as part of the Year of Palestine activities sponsored by AUC faculty which aims to coordinate a number of campus-wide activities and seminars throughout the academic year in support of the Palestinian people. The same programme has invited Edward Said to lecture on 17 March 2003.
Mahfouz award
AUC PRESS will announce the winner of this year's Naguib Mahfouz Prize for Literature on 11 December, the Nobel laureate's birthday, at the Oriental Hall. Rumours reported by the weekly Akhbar Al- Adab suggest this year's prize will go to the Moroccan Salem Hmeish for his novel Al- 'Alama (The Sign).The occasion will also witness the launching of the translation of Sumaya Ramadan's Awraq Al-Nargis, winner of last year's Naguib Mahfouz award.
Abu Zeid's museum
FOLLOWING the success of the nights of Al-Sira Al-Hilaliya by poet Abdel-Rahman El-Abnoudi and Sayed El-Dawwi at Beit Al-Seheimi this Ramadan, Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni has announced the establishment of a special museum for the folk epic -- making it the first museum for oral literature in the Arab world. The Sirat Bani Hilal Museum will be established within the domains of the Public Library of Abnoud in Qena and will be financed by the Cultural Development Fund. It will showcase manuscripts of the sira El-Abnoudi has collected over the past three decades from Egypt, Tunisia, Sudan, Chad and Nigeria. It will house recordings of epic performances by great masters Sayed El-Dawwi, Mabrouk El-Gohari and Gaber Abu Hussein. The museum will include a library of major works and studies on the epic. Artist Hussein El- Shaburi will donate special display cases to complement the surroundings of the museum.
Rachida success
ALGERIAN filmmaker Yamina Bachir- Chouikh's directorial debut Rachida is the winner of this year's Satyajit Ray Award at the Regus London Film Festival (RLFF). The film is described as a provocative and disturbing study of Algerian social and political ills. It narrates the struggle of Rachida, a school teacher, who refuses the request of FIS agents to plant a bomb in her school. After a failed assassination attempt she flees to a distant village and although the fanatics ultimately reach her she is undeterred in her determination to teach.Rachida was one of 13 Arab films screened at RLFF. Other features included Lebanese filmmaker Assad Fouladkar's directorial debut Lamma Hikyit Maryam (When Mariam Spoke Out) which deals with the plight of a young couple, Ziyad and Maryam, as they discover that Maryam is infertile. Family and social pressures take their toll on the couple. Also showing at RLFF were the Syrian Osama Mohamed's Sunduq Al-Dunya (Pandora's Box) and Palestinian Hani Abu Asaad's Al-Quds fi Yawm Akhar (Rana's Wedding).
Book fair news
THE 35TH Cairo International Book Fair (CIBF) will take place from 23 January to 7 February 2003. General Egyptian Book Organisation chairman, Samir Sarhan, has announced that the situation in Palestine and Iraq will be the focus of this round. The other major focus will be Western attacks on Arabs and Islam, making the fight against cultural terrorism and the calls for international justice the focus of most seminars and intellectual activities that take place alongside the fair. A committee of 30 Egyptian intellectuals is responsible for the fair's programme. Meanwhile, publishers from some 80 countries are planning to participate in CIBF this year.
Readings for Ramadan
The Creativity Centre at the Cairo Opera House grounds hosted readings by famous writers over the last two weeks, reports Mustafa El-Minshawi. Among the participants were Fathiya El-Assal who read her story Nissaa Bila Aqni'a (Women Without Masks) and Osama Anwar Okasha who amused the audience with Rihlat Al-Ta'ir Al-Khurafi (Journey of Legendary Bird). Among other readings were Mohamed Salmawy's Wafaa Idris and Alfred Farag's Al- Shakhs (The Person).
Sha'rawi in disputes
MUSTAFA El-Shaal, director of the Ramadan soap opera Imam Al-Du'at (Imam of Preachers), starring Hassan Youssef, Afaf Shoeb and Sawsan Badr and chronicling the life of the late Sheikh Mohamed Metwalli El-Sha'rawi, filed a complaint to Information Minister Safwat Al-Sharif because three important scenes from the series were cut. The omission disrupted the plotline, he argued. Ironically, these cuts were only executed on terrestrial channels, and not Egyptian or Arab satellite ones.Meanwhile, a lawsuit filed by the family of Sheikh El-Sha'rawi to stop the series was turned down. The family, however, plans to sue the producers citing alleged slander that harms the late imam's image, according to Abdel-Rahim El-Sha'rawi, the sheikh's son.
Compiled by
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 28 Nov. - 4 Dec. 2002 (Issue No. 614)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2002/614/cu7.htm