WATANI International
13 June 2010
Colloquial love?
The 27 poems in Al-Ishq al-Sadi (Sadistic Love), a new collection by Ahmed al-Aidi published by Merit, are written in colloquial Egyptian Arabic. Among them are the titles “Disobeying Security”, “Our Lord”, “A Wound”, “If Your Daughter Could Be Mine”, “The Orphan Article”, and “Sadistic Love”. Aidi has dedicated this slim volume to the prominent colloquial poet Ahmed Fouad Nigm who is famous for his scathing criticism of the regime and security in Egypt, pop singer Mohamed Mounir and thinker Khaled Kassab. It is six years since the publication of Aidi’s bestselling novel An Takon Abbass Al-Abd (To Be Abbas The Slave), which was translated into English.
Fear barrier
Today’s Book Series has published a new novel by Mahmoud al-Nuwasera, Hagez Al-Khouf (Barrier of Fear), on the everlasting struggle between good and evil, love and hate, and loyalty and betrayal. Nuwasera’s Al-Raqissoon Alal-Nar (Dancers on Fire), which came out two years ago, was written along the same line but with some differences related to life’s experiences and natural human reactions. The novel tells the tale of five main characters living in a small village. Nuwasera places the story in the countryside to take his readers back to the principles of a calm, simple life, and to remind them of some of the values found in such an environment.
Fragrant memories
The Oktub Publishing House has brought out Ahmed Fikry’s most recent novel Zikra al-Rawa’eh (Memory of Fragrances) a short work with an attractive cover designed by Hatem Arafa. “There are some unforgettable moments that we can still remember with all our senses. Sometimes we can also remember the fragrances in certain situations especially that they are related to illness and medicine,” the author explains in his introduction.
The story takes place in the London Clinic, a privately-owned hospital where an elderly man diagnosed with leukemia awaits a critical operation. Lying in his hospital bed the patient recalls the old days, and this helps him forget his pain and loneliness. Fikry dedicates the novel to his late friend the poet Ahmed Higab who died suddenly, leaving Fikry with a sense of loss and abandonment. The experience clearly had a great effect on him and on his way with words and expressions.
Taste of the days
The young writer Umniya Talaat has a comprehensive new book Taam al-Ayam (Taste of the Days), focusing on the social changes in Egyptian society in the 1970s. Talaat writes about demonstrations in universities and the activities of secret cells before turning to changes in the Arab World after the Iraq-Kuwait war in the 1990s. This well-written book is published by Akmal’s Bookshop.
On the lives of critics
Professor Magdy Ahmed Tawfiq’s recently finalised research project Kayf Yahki al-Nuqqaad (How Do Critics Narrate?) is now published by al-Bustani. The book reviews the lives and schools of the leading short story writer Ahmed al-Raee; Taha Hussein, who wrote some major poetry and novel; and the imaginative romantic writer and intellectual Anwar al-Madaawi. The book looks at Arabic and Egyptian literature in five chapters.
Serious political changes
“Since the beginning of the new millennium, the Arab World has seen serious political changes represented by an almost total yielding to the effects and ideologies of globalisation, a concept that diminishes the basic tenets of nationality. It is also affected by the United States’ war cry for political reform to spread democracy, but according to its own national and economic benefits and not for the sake of developing and improving other countries,” writes Ibrahim Qwaider in the foreword to his new book Nahnu Fi Eyoon al-Tareekh (We In The Eyes of History). Qwaider compiled a short collection of articles, reports, and readings by various prominent writers, intellectuals, politicians and historians in which they explain their views concerning recent issues and crises in the Arab World. The publisher is Dar Shams.