Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti was well-known in Arab cultural circles long before other Barghoutis made the name famous in the political arena. Life and politics brought him to Cairo, and took him away, repeatedly. His return to the city in the (...)
What connections can be drawn between the waves of student and popular protest that swept the world in 1968? Amina Elbendary asks Hossam Issa, an Egyptian student in Paris in May 1968
May 1968 was an exceptional moment in world history, but like (...)
An American University in Cairo exhibition presents rare photographs from the collections of KAC Creswell and Van Leo. Amina Elbendary reports
For AUCians, Creswell is a special collection of books, or a library. For historians and specialists in (...)
Amina Elbendary surfs the official Nasser website
Hosted by the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the Nasser Foundation at <http://nasser.bibalex.org, this website devoted to President Gamal Abdel-Nasser is a pioneering effort in Egyptian and Arab (...)
A week-long programme brings a different image of Egypt to Washington DC, reports Amina Elbendary
"Egypt's Other Pasts: A Pilgrimage through the Splendors of Coptic, Greco-Roman and Islamic Legacies" opens next week in Washington DC. As its (...)
Amina Elbendary forwards a stimulating reading of Sherif Sonbol's poignant photo story on Shubra Al-Khayma, the north Cairo suburb whence the perpetrators of Cairo's most recent string of bombings hail
To live in Cairo is to buoy between (...)
A new film about the Crusades, writes Amina Elbendary, brings the topic closer to the ground
Kingdom of Heaven, Sir Ridley Scott's newest production about the Crusades, was released simultaneously in Cairo, the US and Europe, where it tops the (...)
Amina Elbendary reviews the metamorphosis of Shubra
Not since the national curiosity surrounding Imbaba in the 1990s, has a Cairo neighborhood been brought to the national limelight as Shubra Al-Khayma has this week, following the tragic (...)
A major show at the Royal Academy of Arts celebrates Turkish art. Amina Elbendary queues up, pondering its significance
For centuries the word "Turk" had all sorts of uncomfortable connotations for the European mind. It is therefore quite (...)
Already, before its Cairo premiere next Wednesday, Bab Al-Shams (The Gate of the Sun), Yousry Nasrallah's magic realist retelling of the story of Palestinians, has generated a hubbub in the cultural sphere. Amina Elbendary talks to the director (...)
Highlights of the year's publications, compiled by Amina Elbendary and Mahmoud El-Wardani
In Praise of Books, Nelly Hanna, Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2004. pp219
This book, by Nelly Hanna, professor of Arabic Studies at the (...)
Amina Elbendary traces the metamorphoses of Arafat's image
What remains of a man after he is gone? Memories, perhaps; histories -- shadows in the consciousness of others. And images -- shadows on film. As one looks back at the photographs and images (...)
On the eve of its second anniversary, Amina Elbendary visits the colossal library
Legends surround the ancient library of Alexandria. One involves a boatman and an island: the library was situated on an island off Alexandria, every day the scholars (...)
Iraqi singer and composer Ilham Al-Madfa'i, in Cairo for a series of concerts, takes time out to speak to Amina Elbendary
Everything we have heard of Iraq and Iraqis recently has had to do with war. And so it was with no little excitement that music (...)
Obituary:
Hosny Guindy:
(1940-2003)
'But the greatest of these is love'
Many people were surprised by last week's outpouring of eulogies that accompanied the death of Hosny Guindy. Who was this man that so many people were writing about?
The (...)
The attempt by Arab intellectuals to forge a "new cultural discourse" focussed too much on reforming religious ones, writes Amina Elbendary
Flipping through the programme on Tuesday, the first day of this three-day event that so characterises the (...)
Matrix Reloaded, at least for now, is being kept out of Egyptian cinemas, reports Amina Elbendary
Matrix Reloaded, the second part of the Matrix trilogy, met with worldwide media hype. In Cairo, though, the hype took a different turn: the Department (...)
Art provides many outlets for the children of Aida refugee camp, finds Amina Elbendary
Palestinian children are like other children.
It is, alas, necessary to begin with such a banality if only to explain why so many people were disappointed (they (...)
No winding pathways for Egypt's first woman judge
A question of judgement
Profile by Amina Elbendary
Landing on the third floor of a nondescript apartment building in Garden City it is not difficult to guess which is Tahani El-Gebali's home; it must (...)
The 35th Cairo International Book Fair opened to an anxious reception, writes Amina Elbendary
This year's round of the Cairo International Book Fair (CIBF), the 35th in its history, opened its doors last Thursday against a backdrop of political (...)
As the academic and cultural boycott of Israel gains momentum Amina Elbendary meets Mona Baker, one supporter whose position has excited vitriolic attacks
Atrocities committed against the Palestinian people have reached levels that many in the West (...)
Modern Egyptian men may not exactly fit the Western image of the gentleman, writes Amina Elbendary -- they have created their own
It is true of course, that whenever we girls get together we talk about guys. Now, please don't get me wrong. We do (...)
You can be yourself, and it works
Shades of green
Profile by Amina Elbendary
photo: Randa Shaath
Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti was well-known in Arab cultural circles long before other Barghoutis made the name famous in the political arena. Life (...)
With Tahani El-Gebali likely to become Egypt's first sitting woman judge, Amina Elbendary reports on the issues behind this historic appointment
The façades of courthouses often feature the blindfolded figure of Themis, the Ancient Greek goddess of (...)
Amina Elbendary looks back on a year in culture
Well, 2002 hardly went off with a bang.
Eerily it began, and eerily it ended, with photos of Egypt's Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz on the covers of many magazines and periodicals, his birthday falling (...)