Tanagra

Dar El Tanweer has just launched a new study on torture by Basma Abdel Aziz, entitled "Zakirat Al-Qahr" (The Memory of Subjugation). 

A new Arabic graphic novel for adults by Dr. Ahmed Khaled Tawfik (drawings by Hanan El Karargui), "The Cricket Effect" - or " Ta2thir Al-Garada " in Arabic - tells the story of a man who has invented a time machine that can turn back time to before the Egyptian revolution. He offers his services to certain well-know prisoners who hope to change the outcome of history and be free. But when he starts turning back time, he runs into one difficulty: to what point should he bring back the clock? When he picks a point in recent history to go back to in order to outdo the outcome of time, he finds that it's not far enough, and that he has to go back even further in time. Further and further back he goes, until he reaches THE one crucial event that brought on the rest of events like a snowball rolling down the mountainside. Can you guess what that event might be?!

In 2010, Dar El-Shorouk published Al-Turath al-Masihy al-Islamy (The Christian Heritage in Islam). Al-Ahram Hebdo reviewed the book in Setember 2010: http://hebdo.ahram.org.eg/arab/ahram/2010/9/8/livr2.htm A quote from author Dr. Laila Takla: " He who seeks to find what unites will find it , and those looking for what divides will  also find it ... It's up to us to choose the first alternative, for  our peace and security , as well as that of future generations ...".

Last night saw the opening session of Dar El Tanweer's book club, in partnership with Dr. Mohamed Aboul Ghar's own book club, which has been running for years. The gathering celebrated author Alaa El Aswani's new novel Nadi Al-Sayyaraat (the Automobile Club). Dr. Alaa talked about "the Place" as hero or main character; about doing novel research , familiarizing oneself with the historic period and facts of the era where the novel is set; and the process of novel writing. He quoted Isabel Allende as saying that, whereas a short story falls on her hear like an apple from a tree, a novel takes painstaking work and skill to polish. He estimates that the novella-writing is a much more challenging skill than novel-writing. In attendance was Ibrahim El Mo'alem, CEO of publishing giant Dar el Shourouk and publisher of the daily by the same name. In response to a comment from a participant about he high price of his books, he explained that the publishing industry i...

Mona Prince, university professor of English literature has just published her day-by day account of the January 2011 revolt that toppled the Mubarak regime. Her book is called Ismi Thawra "My name is Revolution" and takes the reader play by play into the fascinating saga of the 18 days that shook Egypt to its roots and changed the course of its history . MORE on Mona Prince

In apublicspace.org Brian T. Edwards writes "Cairo 2010: After Kefaya: ... Taher’s and Alaidy’s generation, what I’m tentatively calling Cairo 2010, seems at once to be writing about the highly personal and the social and is distinct from the 1990s writers. Their experiences are different, as is the way they encounter and depict the Cairo of today, the globally inflected and locally congested space of the megalopolis. Mansoura Ez Eldin, an acclaimed novelist and the young book review editor of the literary weekly Akhbar al-Adab, speaks eloquently of this newest cohort and its departure from the concerns of the previous generations of Egyptian novelists... MORE