Yahia Lababidi, Palestine Wail, Daraja Press, 2024, pp116

Egyptian-American poet Yahia Lababidi has published a new slim volume inspired by the genocidal war on Gaza that started on 7 October last year/ Lababidi’s connection to what’s happening in Gaza is personal as he dedicated his book to the memory of his Palestinian grandmother Rabiha Dajani saying, “Forced to flee her ancestral home in Palestine at gunpoint nearly 80 years ago, she went on to become a remarkable educator, activist, and social worker.”

In two epigraphs he quotes the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish: “Every beautiful poem is an act of resistance”; and the Palestinian novelist Ghassan Kanafani: “I wish children didn’t die. I wish they would be temporarily elevated to the skies until the war ends. Then they would return home safe, and when their parents would ask them, where were you? They would say, we were playing in the clouds.”

In his introduction, Lababidi is deeply disappointed due to the blind and “disgraceful” support of the US for the Israeli massacres and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and he feels relieved due to the increasing number of people denouncing Israeli’s brutal and savage acts.

This poignant collection in Palestine Wail is a blend of poetry and prose in which Lababidi underscores a crucial distinction between religion and politics, and Judaism that should not be confused with Zionism, articulating how people are not defined by their governments or the biased narratives of the media. The collection delves deeply into the humanitarian crisis that’s been going on for more than a year in Gaza and is a call for people to speak out against lies and silence. Lababidi captures the struggle of the Palestinian people as well as their exceptional resilience.

In one of his touching poems, “At Gaza Zoo”, Lababidi illustrates the pitiful state of every creature in the confines of Gaza, humans and animals starving, frightened and uncertain of what tomorrow could bring.  

Lababidi has published 11 books of aphorisms, essays, poetry and conversations including his latest, Quarantine Notes: Aphorisms and Morality and Mortality (2023), Desert Songs (2022), a bilingual account of his desert retreats in Egypt, Learning to Pray (2021), Revolutions of the Heart (2020), Signposts to Elsewhere (2019) and Where Epics Fail (2018).

Radwa Ashour, Granada, AUC Press, 2024, pp486

This trilogy by the late renowned author Radwa Ashour (1946-2014) includes three novels: Granada, Maryama and The Departure. This translation by Kay Heikkinen is not the first translation into English.

The first novel unfolds during the dramatic fall of the Nasrid Emirate of Granada, the last Muslim state in Arab Iberia. Illustrating life in Granada and the attempt to preserve Islamic educational texts through bookseller Abu Jaafar, who secretly moves his library out of town in order to escape the tight grip of the new Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and his wife Isabella and save the books from being burned. Abu Jaafar is preparing for his granddaughter Saleema’s marriage to his trainee Saad. The family and the Muslim community go through difficult challenges including forced conversions and banishments. The two remaining volumes carry the story of the end of Arab Spain further…

The trilogy was first published by Dar Al-Hilal in two volumes and there were several editions to follow, the latest was published by Al-Shorouk in 2005. In 2003 the novel was translated to English by William Granara, published by Syracuse University in New York.

Reem Bassiouny, Al-Ghawass: Abu Hamed Al-Ghazali, Nahdet Masr Publishing House, 2024, pp496

In her latest novel, Reem Bassiouny presents a biography of Imam Abu Hamed Al-Ghazali, one of the most prominent Muslim theologians ever, a philosopher and polymath who lived in the fifth Islamic century. Born in Tous in Persia, he was appointed the head of the Nizzamiyya University in Baghdad, the most prestigious academic position in the Muslim world at the time.

His legacy extends beyond philosophy. He played a vital role in shaping Islamic ethics and spirituality, making him a key figure in the Sunni and Sufi traditions. Al-Ghazali’s contributions continue to resonate in contemporary discussions on faith, reason, and spirituality. And Bassiouny manages to bring him to life…

Egyptian author Reem Bassiouny is a professor of sociolinguistics and the chair Department of Applied Linguistics at the American University in Cairo. She has published many works of fiction and received prestigious awards including the Sawiris Foundation Literary Prize for Young Writers in 2009 for her novel Dr Hanaa and the Sheikh Zayed Award for her Mamluk Trilogy. An English translation of her novel The Pistachio Seller was published by Syracuse University Press in 2009.

Rasha Samir, Al-Masshoura (The Bewitched), The Egyptian-Lebanese Publishing House, 2024, pp464

This novel blends history and fantasy in the frame of early 20th-century social interaction. It takes the reader through the journey of Leonardo coming all the way from the Atlas Mountains to the magical oasis of Siwa, where he meets its people who are ruled by their own customs and traditions and the nature and the power of the desert. The book takes the reader through the hallways of Shali and the ruins of Siwa where the foreign protagonist Leonardo meets Rahim Ibn Al-Zuqala, and the sisters Mabrouka and Taliss, so that together they experience a powerful blend of cruelty and love, adventure and impulsiveness, freedom and danger.

Egyptian novelist Rasha Samir has published numerous novels like Lel Qalb Marsa Akhir (The Heart’s Final Harbor), Banat fi Hekayat (Girls in Tales), Maabad Al-Hob (Love Temple), Saalqaq Honak (I Will Meet You There).

Nawara Negm, Laqad Tam Hazrak (You’ve Been Blocked), Al-Shorouk Publishing House, 2024, pp256

In her novel, Nawara Negm weaves reality and fantasy to depict the paradoxes of daily life. The novel is set in the course of one day inside the internet investigations department in Cairo, with several female characters from different social backgrounds who make fascinating discoveries.  

They have come to file complaints about violations of their web accounts, fearing the potential crimes that may result from such violations. One of them witnesses a crime outside the building when a woman is shot dead by an elderly man. But as it turns out there is also human trafficking on the dark web.  

Nawara Negm is an Egyptian journalist and blogger, the daughter of the late leftist icon, vernacular poet Ahmed Fouad Negm and the journalist and thinker Safinaz Kazem. She earned her BA in English language from the Faculty of Arts, Ain Shams University.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 12 December, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly