"We do not bring medieval works to light, when we read them, we are creating them anew with every interpretation. So today, my reading is one of many."
Chirine El-Ansary: A Thousand and One Layers of Storytelling
September 27, Chirine El-Ansary performed her version of the Thousand and One Nights at the Rich Mix Theatre. The performance, Al-Mustafa Najjar writes, was astounding.
Hanan al-Shaykh’s Novel-in-progress Based in the South of France
In an interview that ran in yesterday's Daily Star, Hanan al-Shaykh said, "I am working on short stories and a novel. All I can say now is that [the novel] is based in the south of France." The acclaimed Lebanese author, one of the Arabic-writing world's most gifted living novelists, has lately been working on … Continue reading Hanan al-Shaykh’s Novel-in-progress Based in the South of France
The (Latest) Revival of the Thousand and One Nights
Still, the Thousand and One Nights have a bad reputation. When we were young, we only read abridged versions---all the explicit scenes were censored. I later read the complete version. The tales express all the dreams that human beings share, yet some people have given themselves the right to confiscate parts of these dreams.