I lived in Cairo 2004-2005, attending the Center for Arabic Studies Abroad (CASA) program and interning at the UNESCO Cairo Office. Toward the end of my time in Cairo, a story I wrote in Arabic won first place in a writing contest. I’m sharing it with you here, with elegant English translation by Lily Sadowsky. Check out the PDF copy here for the original Arabic and the English translation together. Enjoy!
Guest Post by Hend Saeed
As the world appears to move at full speed, following in the wake of technology and AI, reality disappears behind filters, illusions, photoshops, and AI thinking for us. This aspect of technology, that strips us from our reality, removes us from the blessings of having senses, feelings, emotions, and a mind that generates these. We find ourselves running a race, competing to be the best on the surface – focusing on quantity rather than quality.
I grew up surrounded by memories of WWII—not my own of course, since it officially ended more than 30 years before I was born. My grandparents’ military service was common knowledge among those who knew them. Films like Casablanca and War and Remembrance were familiar. In school, we studied Holocaust accounts.
Later, when I lived in Morocco and Egypt, I found a disconnect between the WWII memories that are circulated in the US and the lived experiences of the peoples of North Africa.
In honor of Salma Khadra Jayyusi, who passed away earlier this year, I’d like to revisit Juha the famous trickster character. I was fortunate enough to study Arabic langugage and literature during the years when Jayyusi’s PROTA project was bringing many works to the attention of readers in English. One of these works is published as Tales of Juha: Classic Arab Folk Humor (Northampton, MA: Interlink, 2007). This is a great compilation and rendition of many classic Juha stories.
Guest Post by Houda Elfchtali | Meknes, Morocco Arabic version here | انظروا هنا للنسخة العربية
Houda Elfchtali
Long excluded from the world of music–history makes no mention of female Moroccan artists before the 1940s–Moroccan women had to fight to be able to express their talent. There were eventually some developments in this arena, with national music conservatories opening to women in the early 1940s in Fez, Tetouan, Marrakech, Rabat, Meknes and Casablanca.
In this post, I’m adding some new Arabic proverbs/sayings to the ones I posted years ago here. The post from 2016 is one of my most consistently popular posts, but it is high time we got some new ones! This round is more colloquial. The earlier post includes more quotations from literature. Enjoy!
Honey | Source
إن كان حبيبك عسل، ما تلحوش كلّه If your honey is sweet, don’t lick him/her all away
Houston | Photo by Vlad Busuioc
A few months ago, I picked up Black Water Rising (2009, 1st in the Jay Porter series by Attica Locke) and I was plunged into a world of daily struggle–the struggle to survive, to stay true to one’s principles, to take care of one’s family–often against the odds. I don’t find myself in the perspective of a Black man providing for his family very often, but this opportunity to view the world through someone else’s eyes for a time is a gift.
In this post, I’m delighted to introduce you to some embroidery textile arts happening today and some of the people who are currently at work in these fields in the SWANA/MENA region (Southwest Asia and North Africa/Middle East and North Africa). We’ll be looking at Palestinian, Egyptian, and Moroccan examples, in that order. This post is not comprehensive – feel free to contact me if I’ve failed to include a person or topic you’d like me to add!
In this post, I’m delighted to introduce you to a major textile art happening today: Khayamiyya (Appliqué) of Egypt. Next month we’ll follow up with embroidery arts. Let me know if there are other arts you’d like to see in future posts. For example, anyone here want to write or read about caftan fashions of Morocco? Another topic familiar to those who knit or crochet is “Tunisian crochet.” As far as I know, this technique and its name have nothing to do with Tunisia (source here), but tell me if you know better!
Normally, I publish exactly one post on this blog at the start of each month. I’m making an exception this month, prompted by personal reflections on a recent incident at Hamline University, after signing a petition in support of a faculty member who was dismissed from teaching after showing an image in class that disturbed a student. The petition is here.
Note: I do include the image in question after the next paragraph.
