Edwar al-Kharrat (1926-2015) was an Egyptian novelist, writer, and critic, and great lover of books. He would have been 95 today. In his honor, we revisit this special section.Continue Reading

When I visited the library years after last seeing Edwar, years after he passed away, it was thanks to Mohamed Shoair – a friend, author, and literary journalist at the weekly Akhbar al-Adab. Shoair was entrusted by Edwar’s son, Dr Ihab al-Kharrat, to safeguard and organize the manuscripts, papers, and books left in the library.Continue Reading

“After immigrating to Canada in 1998, and after the release of my second novel Heliopolis in 2000, the writer Hadya Said contacts me from London to offer that I write a joint novel with Edwar al-Kharrat.”Continue Reading

“You could not ask al-Kharrat about an Egyptian writer, dead or alive, without him going to a small room – perhaps the balcony that he closed to carve out more space for his library one day – and take out some of his or her works with care and sensitivity, or works that even its author may have completely forgotten.”Continue Reading

From our special section, edited and translated by Chihab El Khachab, on Edwar al-Kharrat and his library: By Montasser al-Kaffash My first encounter with Edwar al-Kharrat was in 1986, the year I graduated from the Faculty of Arts at Cairo University. I, along with a group of short story writers,Continue Reading

This viewpoint was that the stability of life lay in its capacity to change, in stitching the spread of weakness and strength together, not with the intention of achieving hegemony, but with a desire to look out for what is better, because things are not eternal and they erode to leave traces as the sole witnesses to them.Continue Reading