Book

5 ways to celebrate World Book and Copyright Day

23 Apr 2012
This year, Tunis lit the candle for UNESCO's World Book Day. Five days before the annual UNESCO-sponsored World Book and Copyright Day, hundreds of Tunisian readers took over iconic Habib Bourguiba Avenue with an event called “L...
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Far away from home

“Oddity... The Principle And Its Representations In Literature,” a book by Shaker Abdel Hamid that was published in January 2012 by the Kuwait national Council for Culture, Arts and Letters.
12 Apr 2012
A book about oddity and literature would naturally seem attractive, with readers expecting it to highlight experimental writing and the absurd. But the connotations of the topic could be deceiving. The relationship between oddity and...
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In other words: The things a word carries

عم رشاد، كفيف، يتلو القرآن الكريم بصوت مرتفع علي رصيف إحدى الطرقات، من الغريب أن عم رشاد لا يقوم بذلك بهدف التسول، وإنما لكي يذكر الناس بالقرآن، ويساعدهم علي أن يكون كلام الله دائما في قلوبهم.
08 Apr 2012
“Muslim” and “Moslem” are nothing more than “two different spellings of the same word,” according to the US-based Center for Nonproliferation Studies. This statement was made neither by Arabs nor...
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The strange path of a Palestinian-American novel

In "Morning in Jenin," Susan Abilhawa imagines Palestinian refugees in the few days after the 1948 Nakbah, gradually coming to the realization that “they were slowly being erased from the world, from its history and from its future.” 
01 Apr 2012
When Palestinian-American author Susan Abulhawa began writing her popular “Mornings in Jenin,” it was, she said, “to put a Palestinian voice in English literature.” But although the novel was written in English, it...
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Rabee Jaber’s ‘Druze of Belgrade’ wins 2012 Arabic Booker

28 Mar 2012
ABU DHABI — The 2012 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, popularly called the “Arabic Booker,” was awarded to prolific Lebanese novelist Rabee Jaber on Tuesday night for his novel “Druze of Belgrade.” At a...
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The loss and gain of the self in Mufti’s ‘Toy of Fire’

25 Mar 2012
From the onset, Algerian journalist and writer Bashir Mufti entangles the readers of "Toy of Fire" ("Domiat al-Nar") between reality and fiction. Mufti starts off with a long introduction about his protagonist, Reda...
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Pope Shenouda as a writer

22 Mar 2012
Displayed on the shelves of every church bookstore in Egypt is a collection of writings by the late Pope Shenouda III. The covers of his books, which number over a hundred, are all illustrated with an image of St. Mark’s Coptic...
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Where are the children's books about the 'Arab Spring'?

In "The Black Dot" (2010) by Egyptian author Walid Taher, a group of children triumphs over a mysterious, oppressive dot.
11 Mar 2012
At this year’s Cairo International Book Fair, the most sought-after books were those about Arab revolutions. Titles about revolution, in Arabic and in English, have also dominated prime bookstore shelf space. And yet few...
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Gambling on imagination

Mona Prince
06 Mar 2012
“I'm a young female, gambling on [people’s] imagination.” This is how the 42-year-old novelist and associate professor of English at Suez Canal University, Mona Prince, introduced herself for the presidential race....
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‘A Tunisian Tale’: A grim delight

04 Mar 2012
The spark at the center of Hassouna Mosbahi’s short novel, “A Tunisian Tale,” is a human immolation. As in the real Tunisia, this death by burning launches a thousand stories. The book also echoes revolutionary Tunisia in...
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