Back Issues

Lebanese poets occupy an extremely important place in the Arab poetry scene, both contemporaneously and historically; this feature presents selected works by 32 poets celebrating, at the same time, the 50 years’ anniversary of the first issue of the revolutionary Shi’r poetry magazine. Among the poets are those well-known outside the Arab world such as Ounsi el-Hage, Vénus Khoury-Ghata, Abbas Beydoun, Abdo Wazen, Paul Chaoul and Salah Stétié, and many others who hopefully soon will be.

Fiction writers from Egypt, Iraq and Kuwait begin the issue. In Gamal el-Ghitani’s modernist masterpiece Pyramid Texts, being published by AUC Press, the enigmatic power of the pyramids is skilfully interwoven with threads of Islamic history and Sufi mysticism in a quest for wisdom and enlightenment.

Cover artist is the Egyptian painter (and poetry translator from Italian) Adel El Siwi

CONTENTS

Editorial
Mai Ghoussoub – a Tribute
Miral al-Tahawy Excerpt from the novel Gazelle Tracks
Fadhil al-Azzawi Excerpt from the novel Cell Block 5
Gamal el-Ghitani Excerpt from the novel Pyramid Texts
Taleb Alrefai Excerpt from the novel Samar’s Words

FEATURE ON LEBANESE POETRY

Celebrating Shi’r magazine – Issue No 1,1957
Bassam Hajjar
Yehia Jaber
Jawdat Fakhreddine
Joumana Haddad
Salah Stétié
Youssef Bazzi
Sabah Zwein

Charles Chahwan
Suzanne Alwayan
Fidel Sbeity
Mohammed A S al-Din
Zeinab Assaf
Ghassan Jawad
Bilal Khubbayz
Eskander Habache
Charbel Dagher
Akl Awit
Inaya Jaber
Henry Zoghaib
Wadih Sa’adeh
Etel Adnan
Jad El Hage
Hassan al-Zein
Nazem el-Sayed
Vénus Khoury-Ghata
Abdo Wazen
Amal Nawwar
Hassan Abdallah
Chawki Bazih
Paul Chaoul
Abbas Beydoun
Ounsi El Hage

A TRAVELLING TALE
Issa Makhlouf – Journey around the Pyramids

INTERVIEW WITH A PUBLISHER
Hesham Bahari, publisher of Alhambra Förlag

BOOK REVIEWS
Zuzana Kratka reviews De Niro’s Game by Rawi Hage
Judith Kazantzis reviews Saraya, The Ogre’s Daughter by Emile Habiby
Susannah Tarbush reviews Remember me to Lebanon by Evelyn Shakir
and Dreams of Water by Nada Awar Jarrar
Saadi Youssef reviews Stories from Ancient Iraq retold by Fran Hazelton
Peter Clark reviews Modern Arabic Literature by Paul Starkey

BOOKS IN BRIEF

POETRY AWARDS
The 2007 Golden Wreath to Mahmoud Darwish
La Plume Grand Prix to Musa Hawamdeh
Contributors and Translators