Essays and Features

An Ideological Odyssey Spanning Two Decades of Incarceration: How the Syrian ‘Mandela’ Riyadh al-Turk (1930-2024) Went from Stalinist Communism to Social Democracy

By Elie Chalala

In these times of unrest and turmoil, it comes as no surprise that the passing of who some called Syria’s beloved “Cousin,” the Syrian dissident Riyadh al-Turk, feels like a farewell to the last of a fleeting generation of Arab heroes. Titles such as the “Sheikh of the Syrian Opposition” and the “Mandela of Syria” just barely skim the surface of the oppositionist’s almost-mythological role in the struggle against tyranny throughout the last century. It is not just Riyadh al-Turk’s survival of torture, sacrifice, and solitary confinement throughout over two decades of political imprisonment under the Assad regime, father and son, that has made him a revered figure, but also his unbending will and devotion to his ideals. The Syrian opposition leader fiercely pushed for national democratic change and served as the secretary-general of the Syrian Communist Party’s Political Bureau branch, later renamed the Syrian Democratic People’s Party, from 1973-2005.

Essays and Features

Six Years After Publication, Zionist Protests Transform Adania Shibli’s ‘Minor Detail’ Into a Major Detail

By

Elie Chalala

Arab reactions to the “indefinite postponement” of an award ceremony honoring Palestinian author Adania Shibli and her novel, “Minor Detail” have ranged from ideological to radical, with several voices leveraging the October 16 decision by LitProm, the awards administrator of the Frankfurt Book Fair, as yet another reason to decry Western imperialism.

Layla Baalbaki: The Last Existential Feminist

By Naomi Pham

Upon her passing, critics must reintroduce the late author, whose literary legacy was lost in the haze of time

Despite her reputation as one of the boldest Lebanese women writers at the peak of her career, Layla Baalbaki’s passing without much coverage on October 21, 2023, though delivering a shock throughout the Arab literary world, did not come as a surprise given the journalist and writer’s retreat from the spotlight since the 60s. Baalbaki was the first Lebanese woman tried in court for “outraging public decency” with her short story collection, “Spaceship of Tenderness to the Moon” (1963). The late writer’s life has been shrouded in mystery since she departed from literary fiction, even more so after her death. As many recall the impact of her works, others speculate on her short-lived literary career in equal fervor: why did Layla Baalbaki stop writing? Did she leave behind any notes or a memoir about her life before her passing? Without the woman herself to confirm or deny, any answers remain mere speculation.

Essays and Features

Layla Baalbaki (1936-2023): Lebanese Writer Who Left a Revolutionary Storm in Modern Arab Feminist Novel at 22 Before Unexpected Adieu to Fiction Writing

By Abdo Wazen

After a long stay in London, Layla returned to Beirut in 2009 to sign her novels, “I Live” and “The Gods Deformed,” and her short story collection “Spaceship of Tenderness to the Moon,” which had been republished by Dar al-Adab, at the Beirut Book Fair. Surrounded by her books, Layla seemed as if she was still preserving her old magic and charm. She was Beirut’s “star” novelist during the 60s, especially after “Spaceship of Tenderness” was banned in 1964 on charges of immorality. She was arrested, tried, and won the case.

Essays and Features

In Algeria's Killing Fields: Many Causes Underlie Assassinations of Journalists and Intellectuals

Why Death of a Nation's Conscience Has Met With Cold Indifference

Elie Chalala

Farewell to Habib Sadek (1931-2023): Friend, Poet, and Exceptionally Honest Politician

Having Self-Exiled from the Turbulent World of Lebanese Politics, Sadek Dies Peacefully at 92

By

Elie Chalala

Rarely do I get personal in my notebooks and essays, but this time I will. On July 1, 2023, I lost a friend in Lebanon whom I had known for more than four decades, and even longer if I count the years before I met him in person in Los Angeles. Habib Sadek (1931-2023) was a Lebanese intellectual, poet, author, head of the Cultural Council of Southern Lebanon, former parliamentarian, and, more importantly, someone whose support deeply impacted the early years of Al Jadid Magazine, for which I will always be grateful.

Second-Wave Arab American Literature Caught Between Assimilation and Diversity (3-4): Literary Legacy Which Descended into a Dormant Period Experienced a Revival in Late 1960s

By Naomi Pham

Scholarship on the Mahjar writers saturates much of the existing literature and discussion of Arab American literature, often alongside the contemporary writers of the third wave. By comparison, second-wave literature shares hardly a fraction of the attention between these two periods. From 1948 to 1973, second-wave writers occupied a surprisingly quiet and subdued presence despite the tumultuous developments occurring around them and in the Arab world.

Essays and Features

Lebanon Still Overshadowed by Oblivion As Port Blast Aftermath Enters Fourth Year

By Naomi Pham

Art has played an influential role in making sense of the loss felt after the August 4 explosion. Tom Young’s “Strong Angels” and other paintings show a human dimension of the tragedy and its civilian heroes, who “join forces to lift the city’s grief,” writes Darine Houmani of Diffah Three (The New Arab). “Despite all its devastation, the August 4 explosion brought greater impetus to preserve our heritage and brought about a database of our historical buildings that hadn’t been done before,” states Mona Hallak, an architect, heritage activist, and director of the American University of Beirut’s Neighborhood Initiative, as cited in The New Arab. Several weighed in on the rebuilding efforts, including Lebanese architect Jad Tabet, who proposed “rehabilitation” rather than “reconstruction,” focusing on preserving the city’s existing social fabric and inhabitants alongside the architecture (for further reading on Jad Tabet and architectural heritage, see Al Jadid, Vol. 4, No, 25, Fall 1998; Vol. 5, No. 26, Winter 1999; and Vol. 24, No. 79, 2020). As art historian and gallery owner Andrée Sfeir-Semler says, “You need to nourish people with art and culture because that is what feeds their souls.”

Essays and Features

Nazik al-Malaika: Queen of Free Verse Remains Uncertain

Fifty Years of Debate Yield No Consensus Over Her Place on the Throne of New Arabic Poetry

By

Elie Chalala

Rarely do I open a cultural page in Arab newspapers, whether print or online, without catching wind of new discourse on modern poetry. Though I have never written poetry, the topic naturally draws my interest as an academic in political science, lecturing on debates between tradition and modernity for nearly a third of a century...Debates between traditional and new poetry shouldn’t be dismissed as simply Byzantine arguments. Such discourse indicates significant changes in the Arab world, including modernization and later globalization. Several critics have raised this discussion, the latest of which was in a column by Aref al-Saadi in Asharq Al Awsat, who writes, “I say this based on a slow study of our contemporary poetry and its trends, and I say it because it is the logical result of our willingness to read European literature and study the latest theories in philosophy, art, and psychology. In reality, those who want to combine modern culture with ancient traditions of poetry are like those living today in the clothes of the first century of immigration.” According to Saadi, there are two alternatives to discussing modernity and tradition: “Either we learn the theories, are influenced by them, and apply them, or we do not learn them at all. It may be useful for us to remember that the development in the arts and literature in a given era arises from the meeting of two or more nations.” Closed nations don’t produce anything new but merely repeat what their ancestors did.

Arab American Literature Pioneers Incorporating Modernism and Reason: How Later Generations Reduced a Dynamic Legacy to Mere Genealogy (2-4)

By Elie Chalala

The pioneering Mahjar writing of first-wave Arab American literature has fascinated those in the diaspora community and their homelands for over a century. Modernist characteristics of this literature contributed to its fascination, as it developed earlier than modernism in Arabic literature.

The Mahjar modernist movement emerged in the early 20th century, rooted in romanticism and spiritual philosophy. Arab American poetry diverged from Arab poetry dramatically in form and theme, characterized by simple language, freedom from tradition in rhyme and meter, and the abandonment of stereotypes. This modernist literature was, in some ways, an antecedent to its Arab counterparts. Fascinatingly, while Arab literature did not embrace modernism until the late interwar period, members of the Arab American intellectual community readily adopted the literary movement.

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