Probably the most important of all memoirs of British colonial rule in Egypt is Modern Egypt by Evelyn Baring, Lord Cromer, who after 25 years as British consul-general in Cairo returned to the UK in 1907 to spend his retirement. According to the (...)
The western Sudanese region of Darfur is perhaps best known today among international audiences for the tragic conflict that tore the region apart after 2003, only finding some lasting resolution after the revolution in Sudan that removed former (...)
There have been many books about the British archaeologist-turned-intelligence-officer T E Lawrence, better known as "Lawrence of Arabia" owing to his activities in the region during the First World War, but perhaps there has never been one quite (...)
The growth of tourism in 19th-century Europe opened up new possibilities for travel, with first railways and then steamships placing even previously largely inaccessible destinations such as Egypt well within the reach of Europe's middle (...)
Rather like proverbial London buses that make passengers wait for one to come along, and then three arrive at once, English-language publishers abroad have finally been waking up to the rich back catalogue of works of modern Arabic literature (...)
The surviving sites and monuments of ancient Egypt have always been a source of fascination for European and other visitors to Egypt. They are physically more impressive than the remains of most of the other cultures that once flourished in the (...)
Not many French orientalists have attracted as much attention as Louis Massignon. A long-time professor at the Collège de France in Paris and a member of the Arabic Language Academy in Cairo and sometime lecturer at Cairo University, among many (...)
Since its inception a decade or so ago, the Library of Arabic Literature of mostly classical Arabic literary works in English translation has been going from strength to strength. Published by New York University Press in Abu Dhabi, it now produces (...)
While literary prizes have been proliferating both inside and outside the Arab world over recent years, there are still few that recognise specifically translation, at least of contemporary works of literature.
It is here that the UK Saif Ghobash (...)
Already hit by further restrictions as a result of a second wave of the Covid-19 coronavirus after many months of relative freedom, the French Mediterranean port city of Marseilles, like the rest of France, was once again put under lockdown at the (...)
Born in Alexandria in 1921, after attending Alexandria University Safouan went to Paris after World War II in order to continue his studies, soon becoming interested in psychoanalysis and in the work of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. The latter (...)
Taking place against a background of renewed restrictions against the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus, this year's History Days at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris were necessarily on a smaller scale than has been the norm for this annual (...)
News last week that three worshippers in a church in the southern French city of Nice had been stabbed to death by a suspected Islamist terrorist added to fears in France of a rise of religious violence after the decapitation of French schoolteacher (...)
Biographical details about Michael Pearce, author of the 19 titles that have thus far appeared in the popular Mamur Zapt series of detective stories, can be hard to find apart from the few sentences that appear on the covers of the novels (...)
English crime writer Agatha Christie was an occasional and always appreciative visitor to Egypt. Her first visit took place before the First World War when as the daughter of a wealthy upper-middle class family she spent three months attending balls (...)
The long history of relations between Europe and the Middle East is a marvelous topic for the historian. Not only is the Arab world and broader Middle East Europe's nearest neighbour, but the two regions also have much history in common.
Both the (...)
Many, perhaps most, societies have tended to hold medical practitioners in awe, sometimes hoping against hope, given their historically often-limited scientific knowledge, that the right doctor called at the right time can restore health to a (...)
The Franco-Tunisian writer Albert Memmi, who died in Paris on 22 May at the age of 99, was possibly the last surviving member of the generation of French and North African writers who contributed to debates about the end of French colonialism in the (...)
More and more museums and other institutions worldwide have been putting resources online for people to access during the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.
At a time when it is advisable to leave the house as little as possible and then only for (...)
So, you want to learn Arabic? But what sort of Arabic should you learn and for what purposes should you learn it?
Many people beginning what can turn out to be the long-term project of learning the Arabic language will have asked themselves such (...)
Writing in Al-Ahram Weekly a few weeks ago, Aziza Sami welcomed the appearance in English translation of the Treasure Trove of Benefits and Variety at the Table (Kanz al-fawa'id fi tanwi' al-mawa'id), a mediaeval Egyptian cookbook.
But rather like (...)
Recent years have seen more and more national and international awards emerging for literary works in Arabic, including the annual International Prize for Arabic Fiction (the “Arabic Booker Prize”), the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature awarded by (...)
Many readers of Al-Ahram Weekly will remember that the origins of Al-Ahram go back to the arrival on Egypt's shores of two Lebanese brothers, Beshara and Selim Takla, towards the end of the 19th century and their foundation of a new newspaper of (...)
Cairo is not the only city to have had problems protecting and preserving its modern architecture. Other cities have had too, with common problems being not only the cost of renovating modern buildings that may not conform to contemporary building (...)
For many years, the only modern novel translated from Arabic published in the prestigious Penguin Classics series of international literary works in English translation was Season of Migration to the North by the Sudanese writer Tayeb Salih.
Today, (...)
