Two Documentaries about Egypt and Syria

From Condemning Voter Fraud to Chronicling Regimes Predicament

BY LYNNE ROGERS
In the spring of 2005, when the Egyptian government announced a change to the Constitution for multi-candidate presidential elections, the population took to the streets of Cairo decrying the gesture a fraud. Simultaneously, three courageous women began to worry about the present state of Egypt. Bosayna, an attractive newscaster for Egyptian National Television, votes at an empty polling station and then later reports full civilian participation to her television audience. Disarmed by the blatant hypocrisy, Bosayna joins forces with Engi, a chain smoking Marketing Consultant and Ghada, a university professor and mother of four.More

Tayeb Salih by
Mamoun Sakkkal for Al Jadid

BY LYNNE ROGERS
While some immediately think of the violent crisis in Darfur at the mention of Sudan , others will remember Tayeb Salih, the legendary Sudanese writer who passed away in London at the age of 80. His monumental novel, Season of Migration to the North, first published in English in 1969, is considered by many critics to be the work that launched contemporary Arab literature onto the world stage and into the modern canon. More

BY SHAWIQI ABD AL-AMIR
In Monkith Saaid's studio in Sahnayah, a village south of Damascus , nothing escapes his artistic universe; neither moldy wood, rusted steel, smashed reeds nor stones or glass. Not even sawdust. All traditionally neglected material evading sight or interest enters his workshop and transforms itself, through his extraordinary genius, into beautiful and delicate creatures, whispers of love and shouts of protest against oppression, which collapse together in a hysterical dance. More

BY ANDREA SHALAL-ESA
More Arab-American writers are getting their work published than ever before, but even those lucky few who land lucrative book contracts with big publishers still face a host of problems ranging from censorship to being pigeonholed as only Arab-American writers. Clearly, U.S. publishing has a growing appetite for information about the Arab and Muslim worlds, but many mainstream media remain deeply affected by an Orientalist agenda that focuses on the oppression of women and other stereotypes about Arab society. More

In Memoriam: Suheil Idriss (1925-2008)
Founder of Al Adab moved the waters of Arab Literature

BY MAHMOUD SAEED
The highest honors in modern Arab literature rightly fall on icons like Taha Hussein and Naguib Mahfouz, both authors of irrefutable genius. But while these figures deserve their place in Arab letters, the publishers behind them who, often amid difficult circumstances, have the courage and vision to bring their work to readers sometimes fail to receive their due. Suheil Idriss, an important literary figure in his own right, might lack the recognition shared by Hussein and Mahfouz, but his accomplishments as a publisher rivaled those of the canons most esteemed authors. More

BY ELIE CHALALA
As happens in the West, Arab culture often celebrates authors at the expense of publishers. Also like their Western counterparts, Arab publishers tend toward commercialism and self-interest, jeopardizing the publics best interest. And, typically, they are only too ready to abandon authors of manuscripts deemed controversial, as well as those on whose behalf they receive threats from governments or non-governmental groups. But Lebanon, and even the Arab world, prides itself on the exception that was Dr. Bashir al-Daouk, the late owner of the publishing house Dar Al Talia and the monthly magazine, Dirasaat Arabiyya (Arab Studiess).More

Abstract Sculpture Cropping up in Beiruts Public Spaces

BY RIMA BARAKAT
Increasingly more public sculpture, both representational and purely abstract, is beginning to appear in the public spaces of Beirut. More...