Magic pen
On the occasion of the Reading for All Festival 2008, the thirteenth issue of the literary Al-Qalam al-Sihri (The Magic Pen) magazine, which offers an overview of the festival activities and related topics is out. Members of the Integrated Care Association, which is headed by Mrs Suzanne Mubarak and which offers children the opportunity of membership in public libraries and parks, wrote the content of the new issue. One of the best columns is “A book I liked”, in which children write a review of a library book they enjoyed.
World of secrets
Your secrets is the most recent book issued by Dar al-Hayat. The book, written by the Swiss psychologist Paul Tournier, was translated by Adel Farag and includes six chapters focussing on the independent personality. Paul’s remarkable books are an important reference in the field of family counselling.
City of the Sun
Creating beautiful buildings is not just a job for engineers and labourers, but is a necessity for sound psychological health. This is how Polish architectural restorers and architects Jaroslaw and Agnieszka Dobrowolski see the magnificent architecture of Heliopolis. Their new book Heliopolis: Rebirth of the City of the Sun is published by AUC and translated into Arabic by Mohamed Anani, professor of English Literature at Cairo University. When in the early years of the 20th century the Belgian businessman Edouard Empain began to turn his dream of building an entirely new satellite city in the desert outside Cairo into a reality, he followed the then novel urban-planning concept of the ‘garden city’. In naming his creation, however, he turned the clock to one of the most ancient sites in Egypt, the solar temple of Heliopolis, and in its architecture he sought inspiration for Cairo’s own traditional heritage. When the city, known as ‘New Egypt’ in Arabic, was completed, it was a half-hour tram ride through the desert from Cairo. Today Heliopolis has been enveloped within the huge and ever-growing metropolis. Despite the rapid development, overpopulation and increasing traffic, however, Heliopolis has retained much of its original character and charm. Its houses, mosques, and churches, designed to imitate the various styles of the past, have become historic buildings in their own right. This fully illustrated book introduces the reader to the history and development of Heliopolis through its architecture and its inhabitants past and present. Colour and archival black-and-white photographs throughout are supplemented by line drawings by the Dobrowolskis.
Zionism and Nazism
Al-Sohyuniya wal-Naziya wa nihayat al-Tarikh (Zionism and Nazism and the End of History) by Abdel-Wahab al-Messairy is the latest book published by Dar al-Shorouq. It tackles the Nazi phenomena through some historical theories, and looks at one of the most sensitive issues of the time, the alliance between some Jewish groups, especially the Zionists, and the Nazis, and various views of the Nazis genocide of the Jews.
Writing history
Al-Dar al-Misreya al-Lebnaneya (The Egyptian-Lebanese Publishing House) has issued a new edition of the autobiography of the historian Raouf Abbas (1939 – 2008) Mashaynaha Khutan or Steps We Walked edited and prefaced by his great friend Ebada Keheila. Abbas was a history professor at Cairo University, and headed the Egyptian Society for Historical Studies. Keheila presents his personal perspective of Abbas’s journals and the vital issues they tackled, including the corruption in State-owned Egyptian universities. The new edition contains articles published on the previous editions, some interviews with Abbas, and the story of his spat with the late president Anwar Sadat who wished to have Egypt’s modern history re-written.
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