PUBLISHER / EDITOR Margaret Obank ASSISTANT EDITOR Samuel Shimon COVER ARTIST Sadradeen CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Khaled Mattawa Saadi Youssef Peter Clark Fadhil al-Azzawi Issa J Boullata Mona Zaki Sinan Antoon CONSULTING EDITORS Naguib Mahfouz Etel Adnan Roger Allen Mohammed Bennis Gamal el-Ghitani Marilyn Hacker Erdmute Heller Herbert Mason Yasir Suleiman Susannah Tarbush Sargon Boulus Saif al-Rahbi EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Sarah Macalaster COPY EDITING Jenny Steel, Eleanor Kilroy 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 22, Spring 2005
2 EDITORIAL 0 3 Ali Mosbah A short story Wind 010 Abbas Beydhoun Six Poems 19 Najwa Barakat Excerpt from A Busload of Good People 29 Hassan al-Shami reviews A Busload of Good People
32 Tayeb Salih A short story If She Comes 37 Ibrahim Nasrallah Eight Poems 42 Salah Hasan A Poem An Old Song about the Plains 44 Mansoura Ezeldin A short story Butrus: A Distant Hazy Face 48 Ali al-Domaini Excerpt from the novel The Grey Cloud 56 Nazih Abu Afash Three Poems 61 Hussain al-Mozany A short story The Last Wish 71 Inaya Jaber Thirteen Poems 78 Issa J Boullata A short story A Retired Gentleman 86 Rabia Raihane A short story A Red Spot 89 Fady Joudah A Poem Along Came a Spider 92 Lisa Suhair Majaj Two Poems 94 Baha Edinne Taoud Excerpt from the novel Beyond the Self 103 Rasha Omran A Poem When Longing Tormented Me 106 Mohamed Choukri A short story Men Have All the Luck 122 Aziz Chouaki An Excerpt from The Star of Algiers 132 INTERVIEW with Birgitta Wallin, editor of Karavan magazine 135 TRIBUTE to Samir Naqqash (1938–2004)
BOOK REVIEWS 136 Peter Clark Re-issue of Gamal el-Ghitani’s Zayni Barakat 138 Sophie Richter-Devroe Die Reise nach Tell al-Lahm
[The Journey to Tell al-Lahm] by Najm Wali 140 Fadhil al-Azzawi An Iraqi in Paris by Samuel Shimon
LITERARY INFLUENCES 144 Rafik Schami What I learnt from Sheherazade
EVENTS 152 Prince Claus Fund Award to Mahmoud Darwish 155 Dance-Drama: Texterminators by Mai Ghoussoub 159 CONTRIBUTORS ANDTRANSLATORS
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BANIPAL NO 22, SPRING 2005 1
