Recent Stories

Lebanon Still Overshadowed by Oblivion As Port Blast Aftermath Enters Fourth Year
 
Art has played an influential role in making sense of the loss felt after the August 4 explosion. Tom Young’s “Strong Angels” and other paintings show a human dimension of the tragedy and its civilian heroes, who “join forces to lift the city’s grief,” writes Darine Houmani of Diffah Three (The New Arab). “Despite all its devastation, the August 4 explosion brought greater impetus to preserve our heritage and brought about a database of our historical buildings that hadn’t been done before,” states Mona Hallak, an architect, heritage activist, and director of the American University of Beirut’s Neighborhood Initiative, as cited in The New Arab. Several weighed in on the rebuilding efforts, including Lebanese architect Jad Tabet, who proposed “rehabilitation” rather than “reconstruction,” focusing on preserving the city’s existing social fabric and inhabitants alongside the architecture (for further reading on Jad Tabet and architectural heritage, see Al Jadid, Vol. 4, No, 25, Fall 1998; Vol. 5, No. 26, Winter 1999; and Vol. 24, No. 79, 2020). As art historian and gallery owner Andrée Sfeir-Semler says, “You need to nourish people with art and culture because that is what feeds their souls.”

Pages

Our Current Issue

The Unbearable Weight of Existence in Arab Letters:

Between the Silence of Taboo and the Cry of Despair
By Naomi Pham
 
The 10th of September every year marks World Suicide Prevention Day. The International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) and World Health Organization (WHO) estimate more than 720,000 suicides occur each year worldwide. Large-scale studies conducted on a global level find that the rates of suicidality (encompassing suicidal ideation, plans, attempts, and death by suicide) are low in the Arab world compared to other countries. 2019 statistics from the World Health Organization reported that countries within the Arab world held figures between 2.0 to 4.8 suicides per 100k (with Syria reporting 2.0 and Iraq 3.6 per 100k).
Essays and Features

The Nobel Mirage:

How Power and Language Keep Arabic Literature at the Margins
By Naomi Pham
 
Literary prizes have long held the rapt attention of critics, intellectuals, and readers in the Arab world, as evidenced by the dozens of prizes awarded each year for novels, short story collections, and poetry anthologies. Occasionally, Arab writers have been awarded the International Booker Prize or the Prix Goncourt for translated editions of their works. Yet the Nobel Prize, whose last Arab winner was Naguib Mahfouz in 1988, has eluded them for nearly 40 years. Amir Taj al-Sir writes in “The Annual Nobel Fever,” published in Al-Quds Al-Arabi, that Arab readers and intellectuals follow developments surrounding the Nobel Prize “as if stricken with fever — even though it is not an Arab prize, and it is doubtful that it will ever again be awarded to an Arab after Naguib Mahfouz, given the humiliation and marginalization that Arabs and their ancient civilization face across the world.”* Year after year, anticipation over the year’s winner leaves many in the Arab world asking questions similar to those of Brewin Habib in Al-Quds Al-Arabi: “Will the Nobel remember us after 37 years of absence? And will the eternal nominee, Adonis, finally receive it?”
Essays and Features

The Fragility of Stone, the Fragility of Nations:

Beirut’s Raouché Rock Tells Stories of Endurance and Collapse
By Elie Chalala
 
As a Lebanese and as many others who grew up not far from Beirut and the Raouché district — also known as Pigeons’ Rock — I was captivated by its grandeur. Two massive limestone outcrops rise from the Mediterranean along Beirut’s western coast, separated from the mainland by an ancient earthquake. This natural landmark is not only a symbol of beauty but also a silent witness to Lebanon’s triumphs and tragedies.
Essays and Features

Doria Shafik:

The Daughter of the Nile Who Refused Oblivion
By Naomi Pham
 
There is a sense of irony, or perhaps tragic justice, in that the story of a woman whose life and presence were forcibly erased from the public sphere continues to linger on the minds of many, unforgettable even 50 years after her death. Just as she forged a path through the social and political barriers confronting her, the Egyptian feminist, poet, and editor Doria Shafik’s legacy as one of the leading figures of the Egyptian women’s liberation movement in the 1940s cannot be forgotten. Shafik strived to make her voice and the voices of all Egyptian women known, undeterred by the many who hurled insults, slander, and mockery her way — but in exchange for her efforts, all her work was seized, her allies turned their backs on her, and she lived out her final years in silence and isolation.
Essays and Features

The Elegy of the Resistance:

Hezbollah’s Last Stand Against the Lebanese State
By Elie Chalala
 
Marwan Harb offers a sharp critique of Hezbollah’s estrangement from Lebanese national identity, portraying it as a militarized organization that derives its legitimacy not from democratic participation but from its arsenal. Harb traces the evolution of Hezbollah’s weaponry — once venerated as a sacred tool of liberation — through three distinct phases: initially serving as a sectarian shield during vulnerable times, then an instrument of internal political domination, and ultimately a hollow burden, clinging to relevance without justification. This trajectory illustrates the symbolic decay of the ‘weapon,’ transforming it from a shield of defense to a mechanism of control.
Essays and Features

The Secret History: Reframing Arab American Origin Stories Through a Queer Lens

By 
Angele Ellis
 
Possible Histories: Arab Americans and the Queer Ecology of Peddling
By Charlotte Karem Albrecht
University of California Press, 2023
 
Charlotte Karem Albrecht begins her groundbreaking study with an Arab American family origin story that departs from the heteronormative narrative of intrepid immigrant peddlers achieving success and assimilating into white American s

New Book Examines ‘Solidarity Tourism’ in Palestine as the ‘Voice of the People’

By 
Lynne Rogers
 
Invited to Witness: Solidarity Tourism across Occupied Palestine
By Jennifer Lynn Kelly
Duke University Press, 2023
 
In her book “Invited to Witness: Solidarity Tours across Occupied Palestine,” Jennifer Lynn Kelly explores an aspect of the recent phenomena of trauma/tragedy travel by focusing on the solidarity tours in Occupied Palestine.

Farewell to Habib Sadek (1931-2023): Friend, Poet, and Exceptionally Honest Politician

Having Self-Exiled from the Turbulent World of Lebanese Politics, Sadek Dies Peacefully at 92
By 
Elie Chalala
 
Rarely do I get personal in my notebooks and essays, but this time I will. On July 1, 2023, I lost a friend in Lebanon whom I had known for more than four decades, and even longer if I count the years before I met him in person in Los Angeles. Habib Sadek (1931-2023) was a Lebanese intellectual, poet, author, head of the Cultural Council of Southern Lebanon, former parliamentarian, and, more importantly, someone whose support deeply impacted the early years of Al Jadid Magazine, for which I will always be grateful.

Nazik al-Malaika: Queen of Free Verse Remains Uncertain

Fifty Years of Debate Yield No Consensus Over Her Place on the Throne of New Arabic Poetry
By 
Elie Chalala
 
Rarely do I open a cultural page in Arab newspapers, whether print or online, without catching wind of new discourse on modern poetry. Though I have never written poetry, the topic naturally draws my interest as an academic in political science, lecturing on debates between tradition and modernity for nearly a third of a century...Debates between traditional and new poetry shouldn’t be dismissed as simply Byzantine arguments. Such discourse indicates significant changes in the Arab world, including modernization and later globalization. Several critics have raised this discussion, the latest of which was in a column by Aref al-Saadi in Asharq Al Awsat, who writes, “I say this based on a slow study of our contemporary poetry and its trends, and I say it because it is the logical result of our willingness to read European literature and study the latest theories in philosophy, art, and psychology. In reality, those who want to combine modern culture with ancient traditions of poetry are like those living today in the clothes of the first century of immigration.” According to Saadi, there are two alternatives to discussing modernity and tradition: “Either we learn the theories, are influenced by them, and apply them, or we do not learn them at all. It may be useful for us to remember that the development in the arts and literature in a given era arises from the meeting of two or more nations.” Closed nations don’t produce anything new but merely repeat what their ancestors did.
 
Rarely do I open a cultural page in Arab newspapers, whether print or online, without catching wind of new discourse on modern poetry. Though I have never written poetry, the topic naturally draws my interest as an academic in political science, lecturing on debates between tradition and modernity for nearly a third of a century...Debates between traditional and new poetry shouldn’t be dismissed as simply Byzantine arguments.

To a Woman He Never Met: What Gibran’s Love Letters to May Ziadeh Reveal About the Inner Life of the ‘Prophet’s’ Author

By 
Lynne Rogers
 
For the ordinary reader, “Love Letters” is a short yet savorable book, with letters you can thumb through when drawn to thoughtful musings or aspirations to better oneself. For those interested in Gibran as either a literary giant or an artist, this collection of letters provides a nuanced narrative of his deep spiritual yearnings, dedication to his work, extended gentleness, and benevolent humor. This touching correspondence between these two seminal intellectuals weaves together their mundane concerns, from Ziadeh’s change of hairstyle to intimate emotional and spiritual revelations, as well as Gibran’s aesthetic reflections, adding an empathic human depth to further appreciate both his art and life as an artist.
 
For the ordinary reader, “Love Letters” is a short yet savorable book, with letters you can thumb through when drawn to thoughtful musings or aspirations to better oneself. For those interested in Gibran as either a literary giant or an artist, this collection of letters provides a nuanced narrative of his deep spiritual yearnings, dedication to his work, extended gentleness, and benevolent humor.

A Fresh Look at the Debate: Definitions and Historiography of Arab Americans in the New Century

1-4
By 
Elie Chalala
 
Arab American literature and how we define it remains central to the field’s discourse. Some scholars believe prior knowledge of Arab culture is essential to comprehending Arab American literature since it is an ethnic genre. Since the 20th century until the present, Arab Americans have strongly lobbied to classify Arab American studies as an ethnic field and draw a line between Middle East studies — which belongs to the area studies — and ethnic studies.

Pages