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Can the Sea Change of Emigration Sweep Away the Nation-State? Lebanon Transforming Under Third Wave of Mass Emigration!

By Elie Chalala
Lebanon's problems are too many to list, much less analyze their causes and remedies. With hardly any sector left intact, even the army and security forces, which are considered the last hope, now depend on charitable donations from regional and international donors. But Lebanon's crises go beyond the immediate needs of health care and education. They touch the very pillars that hold the nation together.
 
Essays and Features

Arabic in the Digital Age: As Technologies Merge and the Digital Revolution Progresses, Arabic Digital Presence Lags Behind

By Naomi Pham

Sawsan al-Abtah’s recent article in Asharq al-Awsat exposed the lackluster presence of Arabic on the internet today. This topic is hardly a new one: since the early 2010s, discussions on the broader use of Arabic online and how to streamline Arabic use of the web brought concerns about the language’s underrepresentation in the digital world. Then the outbreak of the Arab Spring led to a larger Arab userbase, with increased citizen journalism, organized activism, and the availability of platforms allowing more freedom of speech and expression. With an abundance of Arabic-speaking users, one would expect Arabic content to develop naturally. On the contrary — al-Abtah points out that Arabic content has been and continues to be overshadowed by content in other languages. Today, we have become more conscious of its shortcomings amid a global pandemic that has pushed large portions of work, education, and social life online, with very few Arabic language resources available.

Essays and Features

Lamia Abbas Amara (1929-2021): Pillar of Iraqi Poetry, Famed for Tenderness, Seductiveness, and Assertiveness

By Elie Chalala

Lamia Abbas Amara rose to prominence among a group of poets who ushered in the free verse movement in Arabic poetry. She was not only a major cultural figure and freethinker, but also a pillar of contemporary poetry in Iraq alongside great poets like Badr Shakir al-Sayyab and Nazik al-Malaika. After years in exile, the poet died at 92 in a California hospital due to illness. In the words of Farouk Youssef of al-Arab newspaper, Lamia is best known for her “poetic tenderness, female seduction, and strong presence on stage,” becoming an important icon of Iraqi poetry.

Essays and Features

On Translated Arabic Books: Novelist Hoda Barakat’s ‘Voices of the Lost’ Catches a Glimpse of the World Refugee Crisis

By Naomi Pham

Millions of people risk life and limb to escape their countries through the sea and other means as a global refugee crisis unfolds. The 2019 winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, Hoda Barakat’s “Voices of the Lost” (Yale University Press, 2021), recently translated from Arabic into English by Marilyn Booth, paints a complex picture of displacement, war, and hope in the bleakest moments among immigrants and refugees.

Books

Revisiting Youssef al-Sayigh: Poet of Sorrows and Master of Contradictions

By Naomi Pham

Iraqi poet Youssef al-Sayigh is one of the many poets who lived and died as a stranger, regardless of his important contributions, which were mostly neglected until after his death in Damascus on December 12, 2005. Al-Sayigh led a life riddled with contradiction, abandoned by his peers, friends, and his government, effectively forced out of the public cultural scene. A poet, novelist, playwright, essayist and painter, he lived a life filled with political and personal tragedy. He was a contemporary of Saadi Yusuf, Abdul Razzaq Abdul Wahed, Musa al-Naqdi and others. This generation followed Badr Shakir al-Sayyab, Nazik al-Malaika and Abdul-Wahhab al-Bayati, the founders of the free verse movement of modern Iraqi poetry. Although al-Sayigh’s biography was published post-humously in Egypt in 2005 by his friend Atheer Muhammad Shehab through Dar al Shorouk, much of the poet’s impact during his life was neglected by Iraqi cultural associations because of his affiliation with the Baath party.

Essays and Features

Assia Djebar (1936-2015)

Home in France; Heart in Algeria
By 
Elie Chalala

The remarkable Assia Djebar has proven almost as controversial in death as in life. Some argued that the writer, who focused on the very human concerns of women, could not be a feminist. Other issues of contention included the Algerian author’s choice to write in French, the language of her country’s former colonizers. Certainly, her induction into the prestigious French Academy as an “immortal,” or life-long member, created controversy, with many critics overlooking the fact that the writer used “the language of the colonizer to document its savagery and some of its bloody memories.” In death, as in life, it appears that Djebar will continue to challenge her critics and provide topics of lively debate. Read more about her life and final journey back to Algeria in the following article.

Assia Djebar has been a problematic for some Arab intellectuals, both when she became an "immortal" or a life-long member of the prestigious French Academy, and when her name was frequently mentioned as a Nobel Prize contender. Her recent death on February 6 proved no exception.  As her body lay in one of Paris’ hospitals, the same questions arose:  Why were her works not translated enough into Arabic, while her novels were translated into scores of other languages? A valid question.

Etab Hreib on Conflict, Commercialism , and Sexism in Syria’s Current Art Movement

By 
Rebecca Joubin

In the this interview with the critically acclaimed Syrian watercolorist, Etab Hreib, she discusses the interrelated nature of the arts in the context of her own love for the theater and set design, and details various influences on her work.

Critically acclaimed Syrian watercolorist, Etab Hreib, a native of Der-Ez-Zor, graduated from the Graphic Arts Department of the University of Damascus. Since then, she has exhibited her work in various parts of the world. She was the recipient of the Al-Mahros Golden Award in Tunisia, a Golden Award from the Chinese Ministry of Culture, and an award from the Ministry of Culture in Algeria.

Evelyn Shakir: Memoirs of an Arab-American Writer, Teacher, and Humanist

By 
By Lynne Rogers

 The World lost a great writer, teacher, scholar, and humanist when Arab-American Evelyn Shakir finally succumbed to breast cancer in 2010. Fortunately, Shakir bequeathed a rich literary legacy to her students, family, and admirers, one that reached its pinnacle with the publication of her final book, "Teaching Arabs, Writing Self, Memoirs of an Arab-American Woman," which is reviewed by Lynne Rogers for Al Jadid. The work documents her experiences growing up as a Lebanese American, as well as her adventures teaching abroad in Lebanon, Bahrain, and Damascus. Interesting characters, observations, and experiences, all related in her gentle, humorous, and often ironic style, make this book one readers will not want to miss. Shakir avoids the pitfalls of being overly didactic through the simple but profound expediency of revealing the social history and politics of each particular moment through a wealth of human interaction.

Teaching Arabs, Writing Self, Memoirs of an Arab-American Woman
By Evelyn Shakir
Olive Branch Press. 2014. 170 pp.  

'Realist' Scholar's Argument Delights the Syrian Regime: 'To Crush ISIS, Make a Deal With Assad"!

By 
Elie Chalala

"It feels surreal to even contemplate the possibility of Western powers crushing ISIS while allying with a regime that has facilitated the deaths of more than 200,000 of its citizens, displaced half of Syria's population, and transformed more than half of the country's infrastructure into a pile of rubble. How could the oppressed and marginalized Sunni communities ever trust in an alliance made with their tormentors?" (From The 'Realist' Scholar's Argument Strikes Delight in Syrian Regime: 'To Crush ISIS, Make a Deal With Assad"!)

Documentary Film Gives Voice to the Erotic Body

By 
Kim Jensen

Joumana Haddad, Lebanese feminist, author, and poet, founded Jasad, the Arabic Journal of Erotic Arts, in order to advocate for the sexual liberation for the Arab World. In her film, “Jasad & The Queen of Contradictions” Amanda Homsi-Ottosson combines interviews with Haddad, Jasad journal contributors, and critics, as well as reactions from the street, and footage taken from the literary salons of Beirut, the Queen of Contradictions herself.  

Jasad & The Queen of Contradictions
A film by Amanda Homsi-Ottosson
Women Make Movies,  2011, 40 minutes 

The Only Diner in the Restaurant: A Travel Writer’s Perspective on the Arab Spring

By 
By Daniel Hugh-Jones

Several excellent articles and books have been written concerning the revolutions of the Arab Spring, most by participants, relatives of the fallen, political analysts or foreign correspondents. Tom Chesshyre makes no claim to any of these perspectives. Instead, he deals with the subject of life during and after revolution with the light touch and charm of a travel writer.

A Tourist in the Arab Spring
By Tom ChesshyreBradt Travel Guides, Ltd.
Bradt Travel Guides, Ltd.The Globe Pequot Press Inc., 2013
The Globe Pequot Press Inc., 2013

The American Mirage: Immigrant or “Un-American?”

By 
By Francis Khairallah Noble

Carlos ben Carlos Rossman, a Puerto Rican Jew, is in for a surprise. When he lands in New York Harbor in 1950, he realizes that the American melting pot is more fable than fact. In many cases, diversity is likely to make one “Un-American” rather than American. Language, culture, religion, or even something as simple as a green baseball bat, when all of the other kids own plain pine bats, can result in ostracism.

In the House UN-AmericanBy Benjamin Hollander
By Benjamin HollanderClockroot Books, 2013
Clockroot Books, 2013

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