Sonallah Ibrahim on the Stages of Revolution
Have not revolutions and historical rebellions always passed through these two stages?
Poetry
What Role Should a Poet Play in Politics?*
In recent days, two very different views of poets and politics have appeared online.
Khaled al-Khamissi’s Taxi and ‘The Beginning of the End’
I was paging back through Khaled al-Khamissi’s Taxi, trans. Jonathan Wright, which is crammed with observations of and insights about contemporary Egypt. The prose here is not elegant, but one reads it and regrets that Anwar Sadat wasn’t “overthrown properly.”
Al Fagoumy, Movie About Colloquial Poet Ahmed Fouad Negm, Opens Today
The Fagoumy billboards have been up for several days now; the film, based on Ahmed Fouad Negm’s autobiography, is out today.
Censors in Tunisia and Egypt Have ‘Important Role to Play’?
While head of the Egyptian Board of Censors Sayed Khattab believes “we are living in the age of freedom,” he adds that “nobody can reasonably say we should just cancel the whole institution” of censorship.
“Er7ol,” by Libyan Poet Giuma Bukleb
Even the ululations, if they exist, that heralded you birth
Take it all with you and leave,
And let us…
Book review: The Traveler and the Innkeeper, Fadhil al-Azzawi
treads much the same ground as his 1972 novel, Cell Block 5. The earlier book has been called the “first Iraqi prison novel,” and much of the action of The Traveler and the Innkeeper, written in the mid-1970s, also takes place among political prisoners and police. Both novels draw on the acclaimed novelist and poet’s own experience in Iraqi jails.
‘There is a Huge Spectrum of Writers in Saudi Arabia’
His response sums up as: Book World Prague was right to honour Saudi Arabia
Do You Want to Win the Sheikh Zayed Prize for Literature?
Nominations for the 2012 Sheikh Zayed award are now open. And this year, organizers want to “reach out to an international market,” according to The National and Middle East Online.