PUBLISHER / EDITOR Margaret Obank ASSISTANT EDITOR Samuel Shimon COVER ARTIST Adel El Siwi CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Khaled Mattawa Saadi Youssef Anton Shammas Peter Clark Fadhil al-Azzawi Sinan Antoon Paul Starkey Issa J Boullata Mona Zaki CONSULTING EDITORS Etel Adnan Roger Allen Mohammed Bennis Gamal el-Ghitani Marilyn Hacker Erdmute Heller Herbert Mason Yasir Suleiman Susannah Tarbush Sargon Boulus Saif al-Rahbi COPY EDITING Corinne Sklar LAYOUT Banipal Publishing

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Tel: +44 (0)20 8568 9747 Fax: +44 (0)20 8568 8509 editorial email: editor@banipal.co.uk subscriptions: subscribe@banipal.co.uk website: www.banipal.co.uk PRINTED BY Short Run Press Ltd Bittern Road, Sowton Ind. Est. EXETER EX2 7LW ISSN: 1461-5363 Photographs not accredited have been donated, photographers unknown © All material: Banipal, authors, translators and artists. All rights reserved.

Banipal takes its name from Ashurbanipal, last great king of Assyria and patron of the arts, whose outstanding achievement was to assemble in Nineveh, from all over his empire, the first systematically organised library in the ancient Middle East. The thousands of clay tablets of Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian writings included the famous Mesopotamian epics of the Creation, the Flood, and Gilgamesh, many folk tales, fables, proverbs, prayers and omen texts. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica

CONTENTS No 28, Spring 2007

2 EDITORIAL 3 Mai Ghoussoub – a Tribute 4 Miral al-Tahawy Excerpt from the novel Gazelle Tracks 014 Fadhil al-Azzawi Excerpt from the novel Cell Block 5

23 Gamal el-Ghitani Excerpt from the novel Pyramid Texts 28 Taleb Alrefai Excerpt from the novel Samar’s Words 38 FEATURE ON LEBANESE POETRY

38 Celebrating Shi’r magazine – Issue No 1,1957 40 Bassam Hajjar 44 Yehia Jaber 48 Jawdat Fakhreddine 52 Joumana Haddad 55 Salah Stétié 56 Youssef Bazzi 60 Sabah Zwein 62 Charles Chahwan 64 Suzanne Alwayan 66 Fidel Sbeity 68 Mohammed A S al-Din 72 Zeinab Assaf 75 Ghasan Jawad 76 Bilal Khubbayz 77 Eskander Habache 80 Charbel Dagher 82 Akl Awit 84 Inaya Jaber 87 Henry Zoghaib 88 Wadih Sa’adeh 91 Etel Adnan 92 Jad El Hage 94 Hassan al-Zein 96 Nazem el-Sayed 99 Vénus Khoury-Ghata 104 Abdo Wazen 108 Amal Nawwar 111 Hassan Abdallah 114 Chawki Bazih 117 Paul Chaoul 121 Abbas Beydoun 126 Ounsi El Hage A TRAVELLING TALE 132 Issa Makhlouf

Journey around the Pyramids INTERVIEW WITH A PUBLISHER 138 Hesham Bahari, publisher of Alhambra Förlag

BOOK REVIEWS 142 Zuzana Kratka De Niro’s Game by Rawi Hage 144 Judith Kazantzis Saraya, The Ogre’s Daughter by Emile Habiby 147 Susannah Tarbush Remember me to Lebanon by Evelyn Shakir and Dreeams of Water by Nada Awar Jarrar 150 Saadi Youssef Stories from Ancient Iraq retold by Fran Hazelton 151 Peter Clark Modern Arabic Literature by Paul Starkey 154 BOOKS IN BRIEF

POETRY AWARDS 156 2007 Golden Wreath: Mahmoud Darwish 158 La Plume Grand Prix: Musa Hawamdeh 159 CONTRIBUTORS ANDTRANSLATORS

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