David Tresilian reports from this year’s Maghreb des Livres Book Fair in Paris, an annual rendez-vous for French-speaking readers on the Arab world
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A new biography of Egyptian writer Taha Hussein emphasises his role in building the cultural institutions of modern Egypt, writes David Tresilian
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A current show at the Arab World Institute in Paris is a rare opportunity to see a panorama of modern and contemporary Algerian art
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A new exhibition at the Louvre in Paris focuses on ancient Egypt’s Kushite Dynasty that originated in today’s Sudan.
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Egyptian critic Mohamed Shoair’s reconstruction of tussles surrounding Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz’s novel Children of the Alley has appeared in English translation.
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A new Paris exhibition is celebrating Jean-François Champollion, the French decipherer of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics at the beginning of the 19th century and one of the founding figures of modern Egyptology.
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Marie Favereau, The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2020, pp377
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The winner of this year’s Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation was announced in London in January in another bumper year for Arabic literature abroad.
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An intriguing new initiative is raising European awareness of Islamic art by organising exhibitions across provincial France, writes David Tresilian
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David Tresilian attended Marseilles exhibition that reconstructs the background and afterlife of French novelist Gustave Flaubert’s North African novel Salammbô, and read the 12th-century Iraqi physician Abdel-Latif al-Baghdadi’s account of his visit to Egypt
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British actor and director Kenneth Branagh’s new film version of crime novelist Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile will likely disappoint fans worldwide.
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English writer Penelope Lively, now approaching her ninth decade, has published a new book including reminiscences of Egypt, writes David Tresilian in an occasional series on books by visitors to Egypt
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A new exhibition at the Institut du Monde Arabe aims to give a synoptic view of the mostly now-vanished Jewish communities of the Arab world, writes David Tresilian, while another — also in Paris — draws intriguing connections between modern European jewellery and traditional Islamic art
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Memories of Al-Andalus — mediaeval Muslim Spain — are very much alive in the southern Spanish region of Andalusia today, as David Tresilian discovers
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A new Paris exhibition adds to Lebanon’s position as a major modern and contemporary art centre of the Arab world while another, at the Giacometti Foundation in Paris, drew connections between the Swiss artist and ancient Egypt.
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A new book provides a rich picture of the Cairo suburb of Maadi from its foundation to nationalisation, writes David Tresilian
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A new openness to the outside world led many early 17th-century English travellers to visit Egypt, writes David Tresilian. By the 19th century guidebooks had begun to emerge thanks to the pioneering efforts of early travellers
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A new translation of memoirs by the 18th-century Syrian traveller Hanna Diyab casts fresh light on well-known tales from the Arabian Nights, writes David Tresilian
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A new exhibition draws attention to the use of papyrus as a writing material in ancient Egypt, arguing that it was the country’s single greatest invention, while a slightly older one brings together recent titles in French on the Arab Maghreb, writes David Tresilian
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A major Paris exhibition is commemorating the bicentenary of the death of the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, including his campaigns in Egypt and the Middle East.
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