ART BOOK REVIEW IN FORTHCOMING AL JADID, VOL. 23, NO. 77, 2019

Exhibition Celebrates Syrian Women Artists as ‘Female Fighters’!
By Al Jadid Staff

The Atassi Foundation’s recent exhibition, “Personal Revolutions: Women Artists from Syria,” prompts a much-needed discussion on the work of female Syrian artists. Running from March to April earlier this year, the exhibition celebrated Syrian women artists as “female fighters” who create their own revolutions. Mouna Atassi, the founder of Atassi Foundation, begins the exhibition’s catalog with an illuminating message, calling for “An Eye on the Past and an Eye on the Present.”

Books

Drawing Conclusions: Shedding a Vital Light on Middle Eastern Art

By D.W. Aossey

Amid so much hubbub and controversy surrounding the politics of the Middle East, one might think that the region’s visual arts are uncultivated, and the role that Middle Eastern artists play in the broader world negligible. But a new book, “Art of the Middle East: Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World and Iran” by Saeb Eigner, rectifies any such misconception and brings the significant contributions of contemporary Arab and Iranian artists to the forefront.

Books

No Way Home: A Tale of Syrian Immigration, Intrigue, Romance and Persecution

By Fawaz Azem

In his latest novel, “Sophia,” the Syrian-German ‘hakawati’ Rafik Schami returns yet again to the well of modern Syria, mining it for tales of romance and intrigue. The “Sophia” of the title, a willful, beautiful, Christian woman, jilts her Muslim lover, Karim, in favor of marrying a rich Damascene Christian goldsmith, Yusuf Baladi. Sophia’s son, Salman, proves the real hero of the novel, the eponymous title notwithstanding. Having fled Syria to Lebanon, he seeks shelter with his aunt Amalia, whose family ostracized her for having married a Protestant.

Books

From Al Jadid Archives

Musical Legacy of Abdul-Halim Hafez Revisited, 42 Years After His Death
By Sami Asmar

The most popular male Arab singer of all time – Abdul-Halim Hafez – rose from poverty to become a friend of kings. He lived for his art and died too soon. Loved and admired by people of all ages, the “Egyptian Elvis,” left his mark on Arabic music for future generations.

Music Dance

The Sexual Unconscious of the Arab Revolutions

By Pamela Nice

This academic work explores both the symbolic statements and lived experience of Arab women who transgress social norms, whether intentionally or unintentionally. The collection of essays by and about contemporary Arab women in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan, Palestine, Egypt, the Maghreb, and the United States recounts the particular ways in which each woman transgressed and how she reacted to the response it provoked. The strongest chapters break free from the bonds of academic jargon and present women in their full flesh-and-blood selves, often suffering greatly for their brave actions, sometimes with bodily manifestations.

Books

Syrian Refugee Drama Troupe Seeks to Heal Traumas

By 
Al Jadid Staff

It is no accident that the "Love Boat" theatrical sea journey ends in Shakespeare's "King Lear," as more and more Syrians die either under assault from Assad and Russian bombs or by drowning, desperately taking to the seas in hopes of escaping genocidal policies.

It is no accident that the "Love Boat" theatrical sea journey ends in Shakespeare's "King Lear," as more and more Syrians die either under assault from Assad and Russian bombs or by drowning, desperately taking to the seas in hopes of escaping genocidal policies.

‘The Morning They Came for Us’: Untold Stories of Syria's Most Vulnerable Victims

By 
Elie Chalala

Ms. Janine di Giovanni, one of Europe’s most respected reporters, chronicles the hardships inflicted upon adults and children alike, telling tales both gruesome and emotional in her new book, “The Morning They Came for Us” (Liveright, 2016). 

 

Ms. Janine di Giovanni, one of Europe’s most respected reporters, chronicles the hardships inflicted upon adults and children alike, telling tales both gruesome and emotional in her new book, “The Morning They Came for Us” (Liveright, 2016). From her visits to Syria in 2012, di Giovanni gathered stories, speaking with a diverse group of people including pro-Assad nuns, regime doctors, and civilian activists...“The Morning They Came for Us” provides rich content that can be difficult to find in daily news coverage alone.

Dreaming at the Crossroads of Cultures: Mirages

By 
Angele Ellis

Issa Makhlouf’s “Mirages” (The Post-Apollo Press, 2015), formerly translated from the Arabic into French in 2004, returns in an English edition translated by Alicia F. Lam.

 
Mirages
By Issa Makhlouf, translated into English by Alicia F. Lam
The Post-Apollo Press, 2015
 
Issa Makhlouf, an expatriate poet, possesses an anthropologist’s eye, a philosopher’s soul, a journalist’s sense of detail – and a heart rooted in the mountains and valleys of Lebanon.

Love and Loss: An Iran-Iraq Story

By 
Bobby Gulshan

For those unaccustomed to witnessing the daily, random bombardments of cities during a bloody conflict like the eight-year Iran-Iraq War, it would be hard to imagine the lives of those who actually endured those experiences.

 
For those unaccustomed to witnessing the daily, random bombardments of cities during a bloody conflict like the eight-year Iran-Iraq War, it would be hard to imagine the lives of those who actually endured those experiences. The novel “A Portal in Space” (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Texas at Austin, 2015), by Mahmoud Saeed, allows readers to feel, share, and interact with the ordinary people living in war-plagued Basra, Iraq. You cannot help but feel connected to the characters as they struggle to cope with their worries, fears, and despair.

Diaspora Arab Women Writers: The Legacy of Shahrazad and Female Infanticide

By 
Nada Ramadan Elnahla

Rather than focus on Arab women’s repression from an observer’s viewpoint, Hanadi al-Samman’s “Anxiety of Erasure: Trauma, Authorship, and the Diaspora in Arab Women's Writings” (Syracuse University Press) instead highlights the accounts of female writers living in diaspora who have contributed productively and creatively through their writings.

Rima Assaf: How One Broadcaster Liberated Her Emotions with the Written Word

By 
Rima Assaf

While preparing my report on the Holocaust of Aleppo, I felt the customary format of broadcast news did not allow me to express my feelings. Thus, I have resorted to these written words in order to release my unbearable pain after watching a father breaking and clawing at stones with his bare hands in search of his children, entombed under mountains of rubbles.

While preparing my report on the Holocaust of Aleppo, I felt the customary format of broadcast news did not allow me to express my feelings. Thus, I have resorted to these written words in order to release my unbearable pain after watching a father breaking and clawing at stones with his bare hands in search of his children, entombed under mountains of rubbles.

Through these words I repeat those of a wounded child in Al Sukari suburb hospital as she cried out: “Mother, help me! May God support and comfort you. My heart hurts me.”

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