Essays and Features

 

The Centenary of the Pioneers Festival hosted at Al-Rashid Theater in Baghdad took place between October 1 and 3, 2026, featuring literary discussions, poetry readings, and music celebrating 100 years since the births of Iraqi poets Badr Shakir al-Sayyab, Abdul-Wahab al-Bayati, and Buland al-Haydari, all born in 1926, who contributed to modern Arabic poetry. This celebration follows the announcement that Badr Shakir al-Sayyab’s childhood home will be restored as a museum dedicated to his work. His granddaughter Dimah al-Kweder, an architect, has been hired to restore the home. Funded by the European Union, UNESCO, in partnership with Iraq’s Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Antiquities, plans to transform the house into a cultural center and literary museum. Original rooms have been adapted for the new cultural center to serve as exhibition centers and to house a library and materials related to Sayyab’s work.

 

As someone who read Gibran during my time in Lebanon (excluding “The Prophet”), I recall all types of exaggerations about the poet, including those labeling him a genius, almost prophetic, without daring to explain his limitations to the level that at times I confused him with one of the many Christian Maronite saints, especially when this sect had ordained a large number of saints. Kahlil Gibran’s worldwide success can not be attributed solely to the East or the West. Influenced by both his childhood in Lebanon and the new realms of knowledge that opened up to him in the West, Gibran’s universal voice spoke on experiences that anyone, regardless of nation or creed, could understand. The success of “The Prophet” introduced the writer’s name to global audiences. Since then, the book has sold over 100 million copies worldwide and has been translated into over 100 languages. In his essay, “Before the West, There Was Lebanon: How Was Gibran’s Character Shaped?”, published in Al Quds Al Arabi, Mouloud Benzadi traces some of Gibran’s most major influences to the many years before the writer emigrated to the United States — his childhood in Lebanon.

 

“Everything became visible. The prisons were opened. People entered them. Cells were photographed. Papers, clothes, remnants of beds, doors, and instruments of torture were collected. What had once been hidden was now placed before everyone’s eyes,” writes Sally Ali in her essay, “Should We ‘Eat Each Other’s Worries’?”, published in Al Modon.* Yet visibility does not necessarily constitute remembrance, nor does displaying the material remains of suffering mean that those who suffered have been cared for in the aftermath. The 63rd Damascus International Fair held in late August brought the horrors of Assad’s prisons out under open air for all to see. The exhibition “When the Walls Speak” was presented in the Interior Ministry’s pavilion. The exhibit included a reconstruction of a cell using real cell doors, detainees’ clothing, handcuffs and other restraints, and a chair used for torture — all items collected from the various prisons and security branches, including Military Security Branch 248, which operated under the Assad regime.

 

A healthy literature cannot be entirely free of crime fiction, or, more broadly, of literature that confronts crime, violence, and human conflict. No society is free of conflicts, whether visible or hidden. A brief look at Algeria’s history before and after independence reveals a long record of political upheaval, repression, and violence. The question, then, is not whether such realities exist, but whether literature is willing to confront them.

 

“A state is not tested when it tries someone who is widely loved. It is tested when it tries someone whom most of the country despises,” writes Sally Ali in her essay, “On One Day, Beirut Abolishes and Damascus Executes.” This observation is particularly relevant to the recent death penalty decisions in Syria and Lebanon, where the question of punishment has become inseparable from the question of state governance. On August 11, the Damascus Criminal Court sentenced former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, his brother Maher al-Assad, cousin Atef Najib, former Defense Minister Fahd Jassem al-Freij, and five other former regime officials to death, a ruling that raises broader questions about what kind of government Syria will establish in the aftermath of the Assad regime. On the same day, Lebanon’s parliament approved the abolition of the death penalty, a decision that Marwan Harb argues may carry little meaning for Lebanese citizens unless the state can also address its political and social failures. Together, the contrasting decisions in Syria and Lebanon demonstrate how the death penalty can serve not merely as a form of punishment, but as a measure of a state’s commitment to justice, accountability, and legitimate governance.