Viewing Iraq War through Psychological Lenses
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New Media and the Arab Spring
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The Veiling of the City
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I Mourn my Wife and Friend, Samira Chalala
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Special Section on Syrian Drama
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Special Section on Syrian Drama
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Dialogue with Sculptor Monkith Saaid Before His Passing
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Reclaiming Arab-American History
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Building the Future While Embracing the Past
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Iraqi Actor Jawad Shukraji on Childhood, Working Under Saddam and His Recent TV Series
Iraqi Actor Jawad Shukraji

When you think back on your childhood, what is the first thing that strikes you?

I was born in Baghdad in 1951 near the shrine of Abdel Ghader al-Gaylani, a Sunni holy man. My mother was from Karbala and my father from Najaf. I was born Shii, yet I spent the early days of my childhood near this Sunni holy shrine.

40 Year-Old Classic Remains Influential: Sadiq Jalal al-Azm’s ‘The Critique of Religious Thought’
Cover of the newest Arabic edition of al-Azm's "Critique of Religious Thought"

For over 40 years now, Sadiq Jalal al-Azm’s “Naqd al-Fikr al-Dini” (“Critique of Religious Thought”) has been one of the most controversial and influential books about the role of religion in Arab politics. Originally published in 1969 by Dar Al Talia and reprinted in 2009 by the same publisher, al-Azm’s work has been cited in countless articles and books about Arab politics and, according to the Qatari weekly,

Clearing a Path for Mainstream Arab-American Literature
"Untitled" by Youssef Abdelki

Arab-American literature was already growing by leaps and bounds in the late 1990s, but the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacking attacks fueled an upsurge of interest in all things Arab and Muslim, and helped broaden the mainstream appeal of poetry and prose by American authors of Arab descent. More Arab-American writers are getting published, and their work is finding its way into more anthologies of women’s writing and other postcolonial collections, albeit slowly. Challenges remain, to be sure, but we are watching a vibrant new genre of Arab-American literature emerge after a century of struggle for recognition. 

A Conversation with Alaa al-Aswany on “The Yacoubian Building”
Director Alaa al-Aswany

So spoke the police officer overseeing the retrieval of my debit card from an ATM machine in Cairo. We had five hours to kill before the process would be successful, so I decided to interview him in his office about his reaction to “The Yacoubian Building.” He gladly obliged me. His comment above was in response to my question about the police brutality in the film version – actually a scene where a young political protester was tortured in a prison, with Mubarak’s picture in the background. 

Mansour Rahbani, Legacy of a Family and a Generation

Modern Arab music was shaped by a few highly creative individuals throughout the 20th century. Three of them were members of one family: the Rahbanis of Lebanon, comprised of the two brothers Assi and Mansour, and a singer named Nuhad Haddad who married Assi and took the name Fairuz.

A Prize to Celebrate: Abdellatif Laabi Wins 2009 Goncourt Literary Prize for Poetry
Abdellatif Laabi by Mamoun Sakkal for Al Jadid.

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.

Albert Cossery, 1913-2008: Mockery as Resistance
Albert Cossery by Mamoun Sakkal for Al Jadid

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. 

Disrepair and Neglect Mar Kahlil Gibran Memorial

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

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.

The Politics of Getting Published: The Continuing Struggle of Arab-American Writers

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, 

On Arkon’s “Towards a Critique of Islamic Reason”

When Mohammad Arkon published his book, “Towards a Critique of Islamic Reason,” in French in 1984, he intended to subject Islamic thought to the same type of intellectual criticism.

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Persecution Complex: Arab Intellectuals Remain Apart from Arab Spring

Whether in Egypt or in Syria, intellectuals are rarely paid any attention by the state, and the reason for this is that they have never been allowed to be part of a civil society.

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Sanctity as Argument, Danger

The sacred is a powerful force, since its symbols are often immune to opposition, critique or even analysis. This is what has allowed these symbols to survive throughout history.

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Covered in Forthcoming
Al Jadid 63

Poetry
 

 

The Other Prison
“Freedom” by Yasser Ganem, 2004(Indian ink and water-color,29cm/44cm)

Can one understand the experience of being a prisoner without ever being in a prison cell? This question might seem strange at first, but those who have met and talked with the family members of political prisoners in Syria will definitely know the answer.

Riyadh al-Turk: In and Out of Syrian Prison
Riyadh al-Turk

As a person, prisoner, and leader, Riyadh al-Turk has few parallels in politics. He is a professional politician in the noblest sense of the word. Politics for al-Turk is a means of attaining the greatest degree of justice, human nobility, and freedom. He has dedicated the bulk of his time and effort to politics, only to be repaid with a lengthy prison sentence. 

Words Behind Bars
Faraj Bairqadar

It is hard to keep calm in the face of the events that Faraj Bairqadar describes in this interview. Born in 1951 in the city of Homs, he is only the second Syrian political prisoner to speak publicly about his experience, though it is an experience shared by numerous other prisoners.

Chariots and Street Corners

D. H. Melhem, who has written extensively on the black American poet Gwendolyn Brooks, exhibits the influence of Brooks’s later work in her own collection of poetry, “Art and Politics, Politics and Art.”

A Dangerous Business

In March 2007, Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo set out with his Afghan driver, Sayed Agha, and his ‘fixer,’ the 24 year old Ajmal Naqshbandi, to interview a “notorious one-legged Taliban commander.”  Instead, the trio found themselves in a nightmare, ...

Man As Nation
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

“Mustafa Kemal Ataturk” commences with images of Modern day Turkey, replete with contradictions and tensions between Islamists and secularists. Since September 11 Turkey has often been hailed as an example of a successful Middle Eastern democracy, ...

Drawing Conclusions: Shedding a Vital Light on Middle Eastern Art
From: "Art of the Middle East: Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World and Iran"

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.

From Documentary to Fiction – Stories of Lebanese Immigrant Women

Remember Me to Lebanon: Stories of Lebanese Women in America

Those who know of Evelyn Shakir’s writing from her seminal 1997 book, “Bint Arab: Arab and Arab-American Women in the United States,” know her to be a skilled chronicler of the lives of Arab women immigrants and their daughters in America. By recording the words of various women across three generations, beginning with the 19th century, Shakir has given public visibility to the presence of strong, active and well-defined communities of Arab women in America.
“Imaginary Homelands”—Lebanese American Prose

I take my title from an essay by Salman Rushdie, in which he reflects on the need many expatriates, exiles, and just plain emigrants feel to look over their shoulder at the land that they have left behind and that now seems lost to them. And, if they’re writers, to try to recreate it in the literature they produce. But Rushdie issues a warning:  “We will not be capable of reclaiming precisely the thing that was lost.” Instead, “we will create fictions, not actual cities or villages but invisible ones, imaginary homelands.”

The Passing of a Great Syrian Writer: Ilfat Idilbi, 1912-2007

It was on a day, much like today (Saturday, June 30), the day of the Gay Pride Parade in Paris, that I met my friend, the writer Ilfat Idilbi, for lunch at Les Deux Magots a few years ago. I had not realized that the Gay Pride Parade would be taking place when I’d first proposed that date for our meeting – I dreaded crowds and noise, both things that did not bother Ilfat Idilbi in the least. As soon as we settled on the terrace, the parade floats began turning down Boulevard St. Germain.