Essays and Features
ESSAYS & FEATURES IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 23, NO. 77, 2019
ESSAYS & FEATURES IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 23, NO. 77, 2019
Wannous' Perspective on Theater: A Balance Between Nationalist Tradition and Universalism
Emile Habibi: The Pessoptimist Who Went Global
For a Friend Sorely Missed
This brief column can only begin to do justice to Iraqi poet and critic Moayyad al-Rawi. A longer tribute will appear in Al Jadid’s next issue later this year (Vol. 23, No. 77, 2019).
Moayyad, who died in 2015, fled the Iraqi dictatorship in 1970 for Lebanon, making it his first stop in a life in exile; it is there I met him. Imprisonment and repression following the 1963 Baathist coup forced him to leave Baghdad and Kirkuk, which he loved, and which figured prominently in his writings.
Uninterrupted Fugue: Uprootedness in Kamal Boullata’s Work
Ali al-Shawk in the Eyes of One Acquaintance
Ali al-Shawk’s death leaves an empty space that no one can fill. He was prolific, thoughtful, articulate, and of high manners. Personally, I thought of him as one of the most cultured intellectuals I have met inside or outside of Iraq. His cultural depth owed to the greatness and diversity of his reading, which included his fluent command of English, from which he translated several books.
The Arabic Novel: The Voice of an Oppressed People
‘Sexuality in the Arab World’: Book Attempts to Shed Multi-Faceted Light on Subject Long in the Shadows
“Sexuality in the Arab World” has fascinated many Western scholars, though not as many Arabs, mainly for political and cultural reasons. Edited by Samir Khalaf and John Gagnon, this book first appeared in English in 2005 and then was published in Arabic by Dar al-Saqi in 2015, translated by Osama Manzalji. Novelist and critic Mahmoud Houjeiri has reviewed this book in Arabic, a review that offers an Arab perspective which is worthy of sharing and translating.