Essays and Features

ESSAYS IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 24, NO. 78, 2020

How Lebanon’s ‘State within a State’ Escalated Financial Disaster: Two Beirut Landmarks – AUB, and Le Bristol Hotel – the Latest Collateral Damage

By

Elie Chalala

It is painful to witness, even from afar, what recently befell Lebanon. This agony springs from the memories of my formative years during Lebanon’s post-independence era, when resentment of its ruling elites consolidated my belief in the necessity of change. I left the country without the reform wish fulfilled, and later watched the flames of civil war consume hopes of change – even when guns fell silent after the country’s second constitution in 1989. While the Lebanese started to come together to embark on reconstruction of the country, corruption, sectarianism, and the plundering of state’s resources soon took over.

Irrational and Divergent Arab Voices on COVID-19: Charlatans, Medical and Political, Exploit Pandemic

Elie Chalala

Farah Al-Qasimi: Between Two Worlds: Arab Americans in Detroit

By

Al Jadid Staff

The works of photographer Farah Al-Qasimi touch on the intricacies of life as an Arab American in Detroit, with each frame capturing both Arab and Western aesthetics. Of the 22 countries belonging to the “Arab World,” as defined by membership in the League of Arab States, seven – Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen – are prominently represented by immigrants in Metro Detroit. The Arab American community is also diverse in its religious representation, with Islam and Christianity in their Middle East iterations represented by a variety of sects and denominations including Chaldean, Coptic, Druze, Greek Orthodox, Maronite, Melkite, Shi’a, Sunni, and Syrian Orthodox.

Women in Kanafani’s ‘Umm Saad’: How Revolutionary Is The ‘Revolutionary Mother’ As Symbol and Actor?

By Odette Yidi David

Ghassan Kanafani weds literary technique to political objectives in his “Umm Saad” (1969), with characters that reflect the Palestinian condition. Kanafani, a literary and a revolutionary figure in the Palestinian national struggle, proposes alternative ways of engaging the masses in the struggle for Palestinian self-determination. With “Umm Saad,” readers can examine the representation of women in Palestinian literature through the story of the titular protagonist, whose son leaves to join the fedayeen.

Essays and Features

Amin Maalouf, Praised by Lebanese Patriots as Born for ‘Greatness,’ Criticized by Hashem Salih for Dubious Claims in His ‘The Wreck of Civilizations’

By

Elie Chalala

Amin Maalouf recently received the National Order of Merit from the French government, earning the second-highest status in the title of Grand Officer. The author's other decorations include the Prix Goncourt in 1993 and his induction into the Academie Francaise in 2011, filling the seat of Claude Lévi-Strauss. His books have been translated into 50 languages. The Lebanese-French author is well-known for the historical themes in his writing. "Leo the African" (1987), for example, is a vivid re-imagining of the life of geographer and scholar Hasan Al-Wazzan. "Ports of Call" (1991) is a love story between a Muslim man and a Jewish woman. One of Maalouf's most well-known novels, "The Rock of Tanios" (1993), which won him the 1993 Prix Goncourt, recounts the conflict between the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and England during the assassination of the Maronite patriarch. Maalouf came from a literary family, about whom he wrote in his biography, "Origins" (2004), which documented Lebanon's shifting loyalties and affiliations throughout the world. His most recent work, "The Wreck of Civilizations" (Le Naufrage des Civilisations, Grassat 2019), takes up Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" thesis but shifts the focus from a clash between civilizations to a crisis that affects all aspects of human civilization. As Huntington's thesis suggests, in the age of globalization and technological development, Maalouf claims we cannot separate peoples and civilizations from each other. The COVID-19 pandemic seems to add credence to the author's claim.

Amin Maalouf recently received the National Order of Merit from the French government, earning the second-highest status in the title of Grand Officer. The author's other decorations include the Prix Goncourt in 1993 and his induction into the Academie Francaise in 2011, filling the seat of Claude Lévi-Strauss. His books have been translated into 50 languages. The Lebanese-French author is well-known for the historical themes in his writing.

FROM OUR ARCHIVES: TWO DECADES AGO IN AL JADID

Sayyed Darwish, Major Arab Music Pioneer

By Nezar Mrouhe

“There have been many attempts to suppress Darwish’s musical legacy, and reviving this legacy will expose how much some musicians have “borrowed” from him. Thus, bringing the musical legacy of Darwish into the public domain is a step toward revitalizing Arabic music and setting the record straight,” in the words of Nezar Mrouhe.

Essays and Features

ESSAYS IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 24, NO. 78, 2020

Bandar Abdel Hamid (1947-2020): Editor and Poet Transformed His Humble Damascus Apartment into Inspiring ‘Literary Salon’

By

Elie Chalala

The “beautiful Bedouin poet” Bandar Abdel Hamid passed away at the age of 73 on February 17, in his Damascus home from a heart attack. He died quietly, discovered 16 hours later to have had a heart attack, without anyone being able to help him. His death sent a painful shock to his many friends in Syria and throughout the Arab world. A leading poet of the 1970s, Bandar’s work contributed to Arab culture and enriched film criticism while encouraging creativity in his peers; he transformed his humble apartment in Damascus into a stage for all forms of art and dialogues among intellectuals, friends, and strangers.

The Metamorphosis of a 19th Century Syrian Feminist: Hanna K. Kourani’s Journey from Lebanese Village to Chicago Women’s Rights Conference

By Al Jadid Staff

One recent book tells the story of a woman’s journey into the Arab feminist movement, at home and abroad – a journey that took her to the city of Chicago in the late 19th century. Hanna Kasbani Kourani (alternatively Hanna K. Korany) was born in 1870 in the town of Kfershima, a village that today is part of Lebanon. Throughout her travels, however, she was referred to as from Ottoman Syria. Kourani was educated at American and English missionary schools and taught in Tripoli’s American Girls School. Syrian writer and novelist Taissier Khalaf’s “The Early Women’s Movement in Ottoman Syria: The Experience of Hanna Kasbani Kourani, 1892-1896” (2019) traces Kourani’s accomplishments during her stay in Chicago, when she toured the United States giving lectures on Syrian life. She arrived in Chicago as the Syrian women’s representative for the World’s Congress of Representative Women in 1893.

Essays and Features

Can Arabic Language ‘Translate’ into the Modern World?

Elie Chalala

Silent in First Person: Where is the Confessional Autobiography in Arab Literature?

By

Al Jadid Staff

Confessions in autobiographies can achieve two things: they reveal all that the writers have concealed about their lives, or they serve to offend those around them in doing so. Some have used confessions to elevate their own characters, depicting their actions as courageous while recalling the wrongs done against them throughout their life. In Arab tradition, writers wish their readers to see them in a positive light, and readers look to autobiographies for ideal figures and role models for future generations, drawing on religious traditions and figures. Rather than touch on his misdeeds, the writer would instead share his accomplishments, highlighting only the positive parts, according to Ehab al-Najdi. The 2015 publication of the Egyptian Najdi’s “Literature of Confessions: Analytical Approaches from a Narrative Perspective” (Dar al-Maaref) examines the complex obstacles and scarcity of confessional writings in the Arab world.

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