Essays and Features

How Painting Came East

Charbel Dagher

A Prize to Celebrate: Abdellatif Laabi Wins 2009 Goncourt Literary Prize for Poetry

Elie Chalala

Literary prizes in the Arab world are hardly occasions for celebration. With the exception of the Sultan Bin al-Owais Award, a good number of literary awards have been greeted with cynicism and skepticism. Many of the prizes are tainted by Gulf or state money and sponsorship, as well as by scandals. Criticism has been directed towards the criteria for selecting candidates, the qualifications of the administrators of the prizes,

Albert Cossery, 1913-2008: Mockery as Resistance

Michael Teague

The novels of Albert Cossery are refreshingly scathing in their criticism of vanity, political corruption, and poverty of thought and imagination. They are also a tribute to the power of humor to free people from the vapid absurdities of modern existence.

The Issue of "Dialogue" in Islamic Culture

Elie Chalala

A New Life for Arab Rationalism?

Elie Chalala

Disrepair and Neglect Mar Kahlil Gibran Memorial

Stan Shabaz

In Washington, D.C., a memorial garden dedicated to the great Lebanese poet and philosopher Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) sits nestled between the offices of world diplomats. A gift to the United States from the Kahlil Gibran Centennial Foundation, the garden park can be found on Massachusetts Avenue’s Embassy Row.

Bashir al-Daouk (1931-2007)

In Memoriam: Farewell to Publisher Hero

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 public’s best interest.

In Memoriam: Suheil Idriss (1925-2008)

Founder of Al Adab 'Moved the Waters' of Arab Literature

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,

The Season of Tayeb Salih - Crossing the Boundaries

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

Monkith Saaid: Fingertips Grasping Place

Shawqi Abd al-Amir

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