Qantara.de - Dialog mit der islamischen Welt

In Egypt, novels written by women who wear the face-veil are gaining in popularity, despite the fact that literary critics point to their religious ideological slant and literary weaknesses. By Sameh FayezMore

A haze of nostalgia pervades ″Menorahs and Minarets″ (2017), the third and final novel in an ambitious trilogy by Egyptian author Kamal Ruhayyim. All three books have now been ably translated into English by Sarah Enany. Marcia Lynx Qualey has the detailsMore

30 August 2016 marks the tenth anniversary of Naguib Mahfouz′ death. Widely regarded as the father of the Arab novel, the Egyptian author won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988: ″through works rich in nuance - now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous″. A volume of his early non-fiction work has recently been published. Marcia Lynx Qualey gives her impressionsMore

Were George Orwell′s ″1984″ to meet and mingle with the rich, detailed portrait of Cairo in Naguib Mahfouz′s ″Trilogy″, the two would birth a novel something like Basma Abdel Aziz′s ″The Queue″. Marcia Lynx Qualey read the bookMore

Following the Arabellion, controversial pluralistic debates on questions of morality or religion were no longer taboo in Egypt. But such discursive freedom has proved short-lived; the tide has turned. These days, the tone adopted by Egypt's regime is more highly charged with religious rhetoric than ever and the goal is clear: to wrest back control of social discourse. Meanwhile Egypt's justice system is playing along and restricting freedom of expression. Sofian Philip Naceur reports from CairoMore

With the increasing efforts to revive the book market in the Arab world by publishers and cultural institutions, intermittently hindered by economic, political and social factors, the limitations of this market are yet to be explored and redefined. By Amira ElmasryMore

The Egyptian author Taha Hussein warned as long ago as the 1930s that the future of Egypt depended on reforming its education system. His book "The Future of Culture in Egypt" is a plea for an enlightened, democratic and Mediterranean Egypt. By Andreas PflitschMore