Books

Viruses and Epidemics of Futility

Kim Jensen

“Koolaids: The Art of War” is Rabih Alameddine’s brilliant and perhaps inflammatory debut novel. It depicts the lives of several gay characters who suffer the dual tragedies of the Lebanese Civil War and the AIDS virus.

Challenging the Masculine War Myth

Judith Gabriel

ON NEW BOOKS:

Ben Jelloun Recounts a Moroccan Tragedy of Repression, Rape and Suicide Against Teenager

Tahar Ben Jelloun returns with his latest novel, “Honey and Bitterness” (Gallimard 2021), following the story of a middle-class Moroccan family torn apart by the suicide of their 16-year-old daughter after her rape. Based on actual events, “Honey and Bitterness” begins after Samia’s death as her parents, Murad and Malika, struggle to process the tragedy. Their marriage — which was arranged by their mothers — descends into loveless, mutual resentment as they cope with their pain, all the while uncovering the truth of Samia’s rape in her diary (a secret the teenager never revealed to her parents because of its taboo nature).

Books

BOOK REVIEWS IN THE CURRENT AL JADID, VOL. 24, NO. 79, 2020

The Arab-Israeli Conflict: How the American Left Grabbed the Third Rail of American Politics

By

Michael Teague

The Arab-Israeli conflict has long been a divisive issue in the left lane of American politics. Bitter disagreements came to the fore, especially during periods of armed conflict and subsequent occupation, such as the wars of 1967 and 1973, and Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

BOOK NEWS IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 24, NO. 79, 2020

New Anthology Empowers, Celebrates the Role of Professional Women Journalists Covering the Mideast

“Don’t shy away from writing about your community, your people, or your home country or region, so long as you uphold the highest journalistic standards,” the late David Khatell told Lebanese-British journalist Zahra Hankir, which inspired her latest work.

“Our Women on the Ground” (Harvill Secker, 2019), edited by Zahra Hankir, compiles a groundbreaking essay collection by 19 Arab and Middle Eastern female journalists, reporters, and photographers. Divided into five sections, these essays combine memoir and reportage to give perspective into the obstacles women journalists face when covering news in dangerous and oppressive countries, where they often encounter sexism and harassment. In an interview with Pen America, Hankir said, “I made sure I included a broad range of contributors in terms of their religious and cultural backgrounds: nationalities, ages, ethnicities, and political learnings. My hope was to demonstrate the diversity of the region through their stories. I worked quite closely with almost all the contributors on shaping their essays, without ever instructing or coaching them on how they should speak their own truths.”

Books

38 Stories That Memorialize the Wisdom of Experience

Books

BOOKS REVIEWED IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 24, NO. 78, 2020

Al Jadid

BOOK REVIEWS IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 24, NO. 78, 2020

New Film History Volume Documents, Preserves Legacy of Palestinian Cinema, From Nakba to the Present

By

Al Jadid Staff

Nadia Yaqub’s recent book “Palestinian Cinema in the Days of Revolution” (University of Texas Press) offers a valuable survey of Palestinian cinema, from its pre-history in the early photographs and films made by international relief organizations, up to its birth out of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s struggle against the Israeli State. Yaqub details the narrative of victimhood that dominated early visual documentation of Palestine, as presented by organizations like the American Friends Service Committee and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Such films depicted Palestinians as “seen but not heard, and their statelessness and victimhood are presented as timeless, ahistorical facts, rather than the results of a process of violent dispossession culminating in the Nakba in 1948.”

BOOK REVIEWS IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 24, NO. 78, 2020

New Book Studies Egypt’s Modern History Through the Production of Its Number One Beer, Stella

By Al Jadid Staff

Lebanon and Egypt are the only two Muslim-majority countries to boast of significant alcoholic beverage industries. For the Lebanese this means Arak, the anise-flavored grape-wine whose production (and consumption) is nothing less than a matter of national pride. Egyptians, for their part, have a similar reputation with regard to beer-making, though this has not been quite as visible since the 1970s, when Sadat began appeasing the Islamists.

Books

BOOK REVIEWS IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 24, NO. 78, 2020

The Scanning of Signs: ‘Love, Sex and Desire in Modern Egypt: Navigating the Margins of Respectability’

By

Al Jadid Staff

Challenging ethnographic theorists like Claude Lévi-Strauss, L.L. Wynn’s “Love, Sex, and Desire in Modern Egypt: Navigating the Margins of Respectability” (University of Texas Press, 2018) considers aspects of love and desire often overlooked by theorists when describing kinship structures. Wynn focuses on 21st century Cairenes in her book, with research collected from 2000-2015 on middle- to upper-class men and women, predominantly heterosexual, and conversations overheard in Arabic.

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