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.

Lebanon’s Tide of Change: Revolutionaries vs. Predators

By Elie Chalala

The Lebanese and Iraqi uprisings, and recently those in Algeria and Sudan, have shaken up the gloom and doom discourse following the first wave of the Arab Spring in 2011. Following the Iranian-Russian-Assadist “victory” over the Syrian revolution, Hezbollah pundits and pseudo-leftists declared it fruitless to replace more than half a century of Syrian tyranny with a democratic system. Those same pundits have recently demonized the second wave of Arab protests in Lebanon and Iraq, portraying them as the outcome of imperialist conspiracies and predicting for them the same fate of the first wave in Syria. Unlike previous conflicts in Lebanon that divided the country along confessional lines, the current revolution includes all sects, both Christian and Muslim – a remarkable historical change. While sectarianism is deep-rooted in Lebanon, and in fact enshrined in the confessional apportionment of state power, the current uprising has united ordinary Lebanese against the corruption of the powerful.

Essays and Features

Moayyad al-Rawi, Iraqi Poet And Renaissance Man Whose Work Painted a Portrait of the 1960s

By Al Jadid Staff

Moayyad al-Rawi, the poet and intellectual, pushed the free verse movement of Arabic poetry into a new dawn during the 1960s. To many, Moayyad was a literary theorist and spiritual guide for this generation of Iraqis. “If we want to draw a portrait of the 1960s, al-Rawi was one of its most important members; and however short the memory of subsequent literary generations, that era remains a milestone in the history of radical rebellions in Iraqi culture,” said Iraqi author Fatima al-Mohsen.

Essays and Features

The Happy Smock: Huguette Caland’s Structured Art and Influence on Artists

Al Jadid Staff

Despite Decades-Old Controversies, Iraqi Poet Badr Shaker al-Sayyab Still Relevant!

By

Al Jadid Staff

The Arab cultural scene never tires of Iraqi poet Badr Shakir al-Sayyab’s legacy, refusing to let it rest even 55 years after his death. The recent publications of Jasim al-Muttair’s “The Swinging Moods of Badr Shakir al-Sayyab,” as well as several columns on the poet by Iraqi writer Yassin al-Dulaymi and Lebanese columnist Mohammad al-Houjeiri, have again brought the poet’s life into the public eye. Sayyab did not shy away from politics in his work. “He was the kind of person who thought that a literary person and an educated person and a poet had a duty to get involved in the politics of his country and his nation and to point his finger and to be on the side of the poor and the struggling sectors of society. Governments were not, still are not, accepting of people who are not accepting of their line,” said his son, Ghailan al-Sayyab, in an interview with The National.

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