It was on 14 October that I met, for the first time, Ahmad El-Khamisi, writer and leftwing intellectual who has written extensively against sectarian tensions vis-à-vis the Copts. Two of the key subjects I wanted to bring to the table at our meeting (...)
My first inkling that what was taking place had already radically transformed the country was on arrival from the US, on 29 January, when the cab driving me from Cairo Airport was entering Alexandria alongside a line of army tanks. As the cab drove (...)
In New York, Hala Halim attends a talk by
Despite the talk being an hour late starting, the audience, largely Middle Eastern, patiently remained in the small auditorium of Alwan for the Arts, an Arab cultural centre founded in New York in 1998. The (...)
Hala Halim recalls some of the defining cultural moments of the past 12 months as well as a number of the luminaries who died in 2006
RUMOURS FROM ANTIQUITY: "Sunken Treasures of Egypt", a touring exhibition of some 500 artefacts salvaged from the (...)
Hala Halim finds evidence of a new cross-cultural sensibility in the pages of Meena
The recently published second issue of Meena : A Bilingual Journal of Arts and Letters reproduces a postcard with the following message: "Dear Mr. Gould, Thank you (...)
Hala Halim speaks with Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer, in Cairo, about trauma and witnessing
"Naguib Mahfouz has drunk the cup and gone, leaving us behind in the shabby grim presence of worldly power, but he's left his wisdom, his writings, his (...)
From the day I was born, on Monday 11 December 1911 AD to be precise, in Sayyidna Al-Husayn district, the place came to dwell within the innermost recesses of my heart. Whenever I walk through it I experience the most amazing elation, akin to that (...)
Hala Halim remembers Dea Al-Saqqaf (1919-2006)
"O my beloved Jalal Al-Din Al-Rumi :
At the beginning of Al-Mathnawi, you recount the story of a nayy [ flute ]
that had been part of a tree in the forest then was severed from its source,
and now it (...)
While translation between Arabic and European languages has become an even more pressing concern given post-9/11 relations between East and West, it remains difficult to gauge how much translation work is being done in either direction, how relevant (...)
Isabella Camera d'Afflitto, Italy's leading translator of Arabic literature, speaks with Hala Halim of the strategies she employs in translating -- and promoting -- contemporary literary texts
At a roundtable discussion during the conference on (...)
Below are extracts from the introduction by Ahmed Kamal Abul-Magd to the forthcoming edition of Naguib Mahfouz's Awlad Haritna, to be published by the Cairo-based Dar Al-Shorouq in Lebanon
The testimony the few lines of which you are about to (...)
Hala Halim finds seminar audiences at the 38th CIBF ready and willing to disagree with the panelists
Fredric Jameson famously described globalisation as a version of "the proverbial elephant, described by its blind observers in so many diverse (...)
Hala Halim on the proceedings of the annual convention of the Modern Language Association
A truism, perhaps, but the annual convention of the Modern Language Association of America (MLA), an institution which dates back to 1883, is something of a (...)
Hala Halim surveys the controversy surrounding the Beni Sweif disaster and its impact on the cultural field
The most emblematic moment in culture in 2005 was, arguably, the fire that broke out during a theatrical performance in a cultural palace in (...)
Hala Halim looks back on the year in culture
If one were to judge the state of culture this year exclusively by the annual and occasional "cultural events" punctuating the calendar, then 2005 would seem to have been a reasonably full year. There was (...)
Hala Halim looks forward to the Alexandria Biennale, and back across the chequered history of the event
The session devoted to Taha Husayn (b.1889- d.1973) that took place on 23 November as part of the Eighth International Symposium on Comparative (...)
Homage unadulterated by critique would have been the easy choice for the Edward W Said Memorial Lecture sponsored by the American University in Cairo (AUC). Thankfully this was not the case, writes Hala Halim, who interviewed the lecturer David (...)
By Mahmoud Nessim
Nezar Samak (b. 1953 - d. 2005), the writer and theatre critic who died on 5 September when a fire broke out during a theatrical performance in a cultural palace in Beni Sweif, obtained his bachelor's degree from the Faculty of (...)
As the 17th Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre draws to a close, Hala Halim considers the impact of the controversy surrounding it
As chairperson of the jury for the 17th Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre (...)
The 17th Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre has become a focal point for the ongoing controversy surrounding the Beni Sweif calamity, writes Hala Halim
In a week that began with the announcement that President Hosni Mubarak had (...)
Hala Halim gauges the response of Egyptian intellectuals to the Beni Sweif tragedy
Beni Sweif, 5 September, 2005. At any other time or place, a fire that claims over 30 lives and leaves many injured during a performance at a cultural centre -- (...)
Empire old, empire new: Hala Halim reports from Los Angeles on two lectures delivered by Edward Said
A long queue outside Royce Hall at 3.30pm on February 20 marked the venue for Edward Said's lecture, which was to start at 4pm. One of two lectures (...)
Campaigns, comics, cosmopolitanism, controversy: four Cs, and without Casper
In medias res
Profile by Hala Halim
There have been many high points in Mohamed Awad's career but this week was special. A past master at polemics, he has had one of his (...)
Hala Halim witnesses a city transformed for the opening of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina
For three days Alexandria was all contrast, caught between the stillness of a ghost town, albeit a thoroughly sanitised one, and the highest-profile event the (...)
Hala Halim keeps a diary of the opening of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, recording close encounters with flailing arms, convivial policemen and three blind mice
Click to view caption
The Corniche, as we drove to Montazah, where the press conference (...)