تحيا مصر
One more time, “To the Tyrants of the World” by Tunisian poet Abo Al Qassim Al Shabbi
February 2011
Translations of ‘Prince of Poets’ Competitor’s Poem for the Revolution: Tahrir Square by Hesham al-Gakh
Last week, Hesham al-Gakh skipped the “Prince of Poets” competition in order to join Egypt’s new day.
Egypt’s Minister of Culture Merry-go-round
After 25 years of Farouk Hosni, Egypt had less than a fortnight of its latest Minister of Culture, Gaber Asfour.
Protest Poetry and Music
Ammar Dajani has started to compile a list of #Jan25 freedom songs on Facebook, which includes the above song, ارحل (Leave), a few popular chants put to music, with acoustic guitar.
Is Arabic Literature (in Translation) Overwhelmingly Male?
A much-discussed VIDA report on how much women’s fiction gets reviewed in U.S. publications (summary: not as much as men’s) has been followed by commentary on how much gets published (summary: not as much as men’s).
Michael Orthofer at The Literary Saloon and Hilary Plum over at Clockroot Books briefly look at how this applies to books in translation, coming up with a figure about 20 percent female authors vs. 80 percent male.
Can the same be said for the smaller world of Arabic fiction in English?
The Fate of the Alexandria Library
The Wall Street Journal’s Michael Z. Wise comments today that the Alexandria Library—or Biblioteca Alexandrina—has become a symbol of the “New Egypt.” Indeed, we have seen protesters linking arms and taking shifts to protect the Biblioteca in a beautiful show of support for a nation’s cultural institutions.
Join 7iber’s New Book Club and Read Sonallah Ibrahim’s اللجنة / The Committee
The Jordanian news-and-culture website 7iber.Com is launching its new book club, “Inkitab – انكتاب,” with a reading of The Committee (1981, 2001 English) by celebrated Egyptian author Sonallah Ibrahim.
Egyptian Novelists Go Back to the Drawing Board
I’ve had to go back to the drawing board with an essay-review about Egyptian fiction that I’d thought was nearly finished. But it didn’t occur to my apparently blinkered brain that this will be true for many authors with much longer and more serious projects.
Egypt’s Sixties Generation Novelists on the Nation and Revolution
In his essay yesterday about “State Culture, State Anarchy,” Elliott Colla very briefly touched on author Sonallah Ibrahim’s 2003 put-down of the Egyptian state cultural apparatus.