Books

Dear Christina “DZA” Marie,   First off all let me thank you on behalf of all the readers of The Levant newspaper in the Middle East and elsewhere. It’s not every day we get to talk to a distinguished author and, better yet, someone who teach authors how to write. …

U.S. President Donald Trump acknowledged to a journalist early in the coronavirus pandemic that he played down the danger of the health crisis despite having evidence to the contrary, according to a new book. “I wanted to always play it down,” Trump told author Bob Woodward on March 19, days …

Hedy Habra, The Taste of the Earth  (Winston-Salem, NC: Press 53, 2019). By Layla Azmi Goushey   In June 2020, I had the good fortune to attend a virtual poetry reading where Hedy Habra, author of the recently-published poetry collection, The Taste of the Earth, read selections from her work. …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD   I’ve been planning to write about Youssef El Sherif’s Al-Nihaya (The End) since the holy month of Ramadan began but found it difficult to research and preferred to wait till the end before passing judgement on it. It is Egypt’s first ever sci-fi TV …

The first part of ‘The Hidden Agenda Behind Covid-19’ a new film by Plandemic went viral on the internet in the past 24 hours. The documentary reveals the agenda of the scientific and political elite who run the global health system and shows the sinister role of U.S. president Donald …

This interview was conducted by Darius Luca Hupov. Hupov is the Editor-in-chief of Romania’s top sci-fi online publication, Galaxy 42, covering the activities of sci-fi enthusiasts from Europe to China and the Middle East. Darius Hupov has been writing science fiction since 1987 ans has published in the Banat Renaissance, …

As an SF author, activist and reviewer from the Eastern part of the Arab world, I can’t help but feeling humbled if not downright jealous of what is going on in the Western part of the Arab world, the so-called Maghreb. I say this after reading a novel I’ve been …

Emad El-Din Aysha: Tell me something about yourself, your CV? Asmaa Kadry: Forget CV’s, they’re highly overrated. I think you could say that I’m an eclectic soul: Internationally accredited Psychotherapist, Hypnotherapist & NLP life coach Public speaker & certified trainer Author whose written and published 10 books until now mostly …

I’ve written previously about Ammar Al-Masry’s novels Shadows of Atlantis and Throne of Atlantis, so it only seems fair to write about the third and supposedly final instalment in the New World series, Heart of Atlantis (2019). I’d finished reading the novel the previous year but held out on writing …

Just 11 days after Abdelmadjid Tebboune was elected president of a deeply polarised Algeria, the country’s powerful military chief Lt Gen Ahmed Gaid Salah died of a heart attack. This unexpected development has prompted questions about the future of Algeria’s political system; it is obviously too soon to tell if …

By RAMZY BAROUD   Palestine’s Christian population is dwindling at an alarming rate. The world’s most ancient Christian community is moving elsewhere. And the reason for this is Israel. Christian leaders from Palestine and South Africa sounded the alarm at a conference in Johannesburg on October 15. Their gathering was …

By Layla Azmi Goushey   In Palestine + 100: Stories from a century after the Nakba, twelve Palestinian writers answer the question” What might your country look like in the year 2048?” Their answers are encased in a thrilling collection of speculative, dystopian, and futuristic short fiction edited by Basma …

“I enjoyed the question you posed about why Bester didn’t have Hassel murder Jesus.” – Richard Chwedyk Hi Gouthama, At last, I’ve gotten around to reading Political Travails of Time Travel and found it most entertaining and thought-provoking. I was most intrigued with the Indian folktales about the trees of …

By Massimo Luciani   “Political travails of Time travel” (“Kaalap payana Arasiyal”) by Gouthama Siddarthan was published for the first time in 2018 with the English version translated from the Tamil by Maharathi. Partly an essay on time travel, partly a commentary on two short stories on the subject by …

By Gouthama Siddarthan   When my book, ‘I travagli politici del viaggio nel tempo’ – (Translation by Davite Mana), was published in Italian, it was Domenico Attianese, who for the first time introduced it. It was thanks to his introduction that my book hogged a widespread attention. Also, Vincenzo Barone …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD   As journalist with The Levant and a member of the Egyptian Society for Science Fiction (ESSF), I’m always on the lookout for fellow Arab and Muslim authors of science fiction, and one area that has peaked my interest as of late is Sufi science …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD     Here’s a blast from the past. I remember reading an annoying interview once by the director of Quantum of Solace (2008) where he explained his misplaced sense of realism in the movie, which pissed off a lot of fans, myself included. He said …

Reviewed by Ameer Imam*   Some wounds never heal up and bleed for ages. History is always in a hurry. It never thinks what is left behind. It never cares if its work is finished or unfinished. It moves like a river without thinking for a while that its banks …

By Layla Azmi Goushey*   “Lambs of the Desert”, a short story by Dr. Emad El-Din Aysha is an intriguing blend of science fiction and resistance Literature.[1] Dr. Aysha, who is bilingual in English and Arabic, and whose birthplace is the United Kingdom, is currently a resident of Cairo, Egypt …

A message about Silvio Gesell, author of The Natural Economic Order, and the mind behind Money with Demurrage, was received approvingly Friday by The New Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi. The message was sent by Angel NicGillicuddy author of ShiBboLeTh the book. India has a history of supporting the …

By Gouthama Siddarthan*   If a debate is initiated on the art of histrionics in the world cinema, it will pivot on German personality Klaus Kinski. Shunning the acting style born out of a director’s dictation, scenes which break out from the inner inspiration can be seen in the film, “Aguirre, the …

By Gouthama Siddarthan*   The other day I happened on a performance of ‘Annanmaar koothu’ (Elder Brothers Theatre), one of the Tamils’ antediluvian folk story-in-songs.  This folk form assumes significance, deeply rooted in the western part of Tamil Nadu, that is, Kongu region, and narrating aesthetically designed battlefield scenes conjuring …

By Gouthama Siddarthan*   Among  several programmes on the my favourite American TV channel  History TV, the most charming and appealing one is the  Leepu and Pitbull reality television series.  That has gone down well with lovers of cars remodelled out of the old and the condemned. The show revolves around …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD   What can I say about Ammar Al-Masry’s Throne of Atlantis, the long awaited sequel to Shadows of Atlantis? It’s a mind-boggling treat! To remind those who have forgotten, myself included, here is a summary. In Shadows of Atlantis you have a near perfect world …

 By Gouthama Siddarthan*   The famous school of post-modernist art and literary thought enjoins one to study a work of art not only from just an artistic perspective but also from a multi-dimensional viewpoint which will ferret out the subtle features of the work. We are living in a critics’ …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD   This is a different review than any other I’ve written to date. The reason is, I’m a proud participant in the book in question – The Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror volume IV! This is an anthology, and a big one at …

  Hello, Mr.Gouthama, welcome to Melange ! Could you please tell us about you and what you are ?   From the International arena, you welcome me and my writings. I thank you and International readers of sci-fi as well on behalf of Tamil.   I am primarily a fiction writer …

A New Zealand nurse visited the ancient city of Petra in Jordan, where she met a Bedouin seller of souvenirs and loved him and lived with him in his cave. By Dr. Haytham Mouzahem — ‘”Where you staying?” the Bedouin asked. “Why you not stay with me tonight – in …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD     وَإِذْ يَمْكُرُ بِكَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا لِيُثْبِتُوكَ أَوْ يَقْتُلُوكَ أَوْ يُخْرِجُوكَ ۚ وَيَمْكُرُونَ وَيَمْكُرُ اللَّهُ ۖ وَاللَّهُ خَيْرُ الْمَاكِرِينَ And [remember, O Muhammad], when those who disbelieved plotted against you to restrain you or kill you or evict you [from Makkah]. But they plan, …

By Gouthama Siddarthan* —     Speculative fiction has, of late, been catching up in the world of writing which is highly enamoured of it.  But there is a great danger of this fascination falling into the groove of popular legal thriller. The danger bristles with the risky possibility of …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD   I’ve never been very partial towards reading heavy-duty fantasy novels, I’m loath to admit, let alone a full length fantasy novel in Arabic. So it was a refreshing change from my usual diet of hard sci-fi to read Ahmed Salah Al-Mahdi’s The Greek Papyrus: …

The is a translation of an interview conducted by Mohamed Nazreen Shahul Hamid and published in the November 2018 edition of “Dewan Sastera“, a Malaysian literary magazine edited by Zaharahanum Kamarudin. The interviewee, Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD, is currently a member of the Egyptian Society for Science Fiction (ESSF) and a …

Yasmin Khan’s new cookbook, “Zaitoun,” documents her travels in the West Bank and Gaza, and the beauty of the food she encountered there… taken from The New York Times. “Zaitoun: Recipes From the Palestinian Kitchen,” which is being published in the United States this week by W.W. Norton & Company, …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD     Resistance literature, in the Arabic tradition, has been defined as: The literature of any group or people that are aware of their identity and fighting for their freedom against an aggressive other, and for their collective deliverance. The key words are freedom, collective …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD   I had the good fortune of attending a book signing event once, with Ibrahim Nasrallah as the guest of honour, and during the question-answer session, somebody mentioned George Orwell’s dystopian classic 1984. This was no coincidence since the book being signed away was Nasrallah’s …

His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, received the President of Angola, Joao Lourenco, who was in the UAE to attend the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, ADSW, at Al Shati Palace on Sunday. H.H. Sheikh …

The total value of non-oil trade between the UAE and the Republic of Armenia reached AED920 million during 2017, compared to AED375 million in 2015, the Ministry of Economy has said. In a report on the trade policy review between the two countries, the ministry said that doubling of trade …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD     I made the mistake of reading, and the even bigger mistake of ‘buying’, M. M. Tawfik’s novel Candygirl: An Egyptian Novel, published in English by the AUC Press in 2013. (Mr. Tawfik did the translation himself, and he does a reasonably competent job …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD*   Iritdad or ‘Backwards’ is a science fiction novel by Egyptian author Muhammad Ahmed Al-Nagui, published originally in 2016. As you can probably guess from the title, the novel fits in the time-travel genre. The story is set in the distant future, 2107 to be …

“The Sole Spokesman: Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the Founding of Pakistan” – by Ayesha Jalal  (Author) —   Reviewed By Dr. Geoffrey Cook* —  In the West, it is easy to paint Mohammad Ali Jinnah as the “evil” nemesis of Gandhi in the struggle for self-rule on the Indian subcontinent. The one …

Robots are a regular staple in science fiction, from Isaac Asimov’s book I, Robot to the latest episode of Westworld. So while I was at an event in Boston, I picked up Generation Robot: A Century of Science Fiction, Fact, and Speculation by Terri Favro. It’s an interesting and funny …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD   There are many avenues you can pursue to make sense of the Israelis, it emerges, once you dabble in the second-hand book market here in Egypt. One way of getting to the bottom of them is to look at how they look at us, …

By Dr. Haytham Mouzahem — First appeared on al-Mesbar Studies and Research Centre — The “Arab Spring” revolutions lent an unprecedented opportunity for the Muslim Brotherhood movement to emerge from secrecy and take political power, whether by ballot or by bullet, in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and elsewhere. Indeed, the Brotherhood …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD*   What can we say, off the bat, about Iraq + 100, published by independent UK-based publisher Comma Press in 2016? Well, first of all, it’s a brave attempt by a small publisher to establish Iraq in the field of science fiction, a genre that …