Category: Culture

Can the Iranian System Survive?

In an interview, Ali Fathollah-Nejad discusses the recent protests in Iran, and long-term prospects for the post-revolutionary political order. By MICHAEL YOUNG Ali Fathollah-Nejad is a German-Iranian political scientist focusing on Iran, the Middle East, and the post-unipolar world order. He is a McCloy Fellow on Global Trends of the American Council on Germany, exploring […]

Kahlil Gibran and the Armenians

The 24th of April (today) in 1916 for many Armenians around the world commemorate the tragic events of what is now recognized as the Armenian Genocide (or Holocaust). The atrocities committed by the Turkish-Ottoman forces between 1914 and 1923 are estimated to have killed 1.5 million Armenians, in what is widely accepted as the “first […]

Zoha Kazemi on the cybernetic ties that bind Iranian and Arab science fiction

The Levant News Exclusive – By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD Dear Mrs Zoha Kazemi, Please let me express my gratitude for this opportunity. It’s not every day that you speak to Iran’s most widely published sci-fi novelist, and one who has been published in English no less. (Best of luck for your two novels Rain […]

A Publisher Is Known By the Company He Keeps Reaps.

“[B]ut it was Blanche’s peculiar astuteness that led to the 1923 publication of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, whose modest initial sales would metastasize 40 years later, in the woo-woo ’60s, helping to lift Knopf into the commercial big-time” By Glen Kalem A new biography on Blanche Knopf, wife of publishing giant Alfred A. Knopf, whose published works […]

Prequel with a Purpose: You won’t have a ‘Prey’ in heaven against this little warrior! - PART II

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD The other stuff is a bit more flimsy but they are forgivable sins given how competent the movie is and how sincere it is. Jesse Ventura from the original movie has gone out of his way to praise it, so that’s good enough for me. As said above the cinematography […]

Qatar World Cup: An unintended boon for the UAE

Qatar's 2022 World Cup promises to benefit not only itself but also to provide an unintended economic, political, and religious soft power boon for its foremost rival in the region, the United Arab Emirates. By James M. Dorsey The UAE, alongside Saudi Arabia, leads a pack of Gulf states eager to capitalize on the expectation […]

Abe assassin angry at overzealous mother, wins sympathy of Japanese people

The brazen assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe with a handmade gun shocked a nation unused to high-profile political violence. But there has been another surprise in the weeks since the murder as details have emerged about an alleged assassin who was well-off until his mother's huge donations to the controversial Unification Church […]

Private sector in Egypt believed to be discriminating against girls in hijabs

Women wearing hijabs (Muslim headscarves) are being discriminated against by businesses in Egypt, a BBC Arabic investigation has discovered. The evidence appears to violate Egypt's constitution, which bans discrimination based on religion, sex, race or social class. Since 2015, some Egyptian women wearing a hijab have taken to social media to complain about such treatment. […]

Mikhail Naimy: When Kahlil Gibran found "a new Michelangelo"

Kahlil Gibran was not the only writer of New York's "Little Syria" who devoted himself to figurative arts. Although amateurish, Ameen Rihani (1876-1940) made several drawings, sketches, and paintings (all of which are held at the Ameen Rihani Museum in his native Freike, Lebanon), and he published some of them in his travel books. By Francesco MediciFor a […]

Anti-liberal backlash as Christian nationalism sweeps USA

By Liz Theoharis In the 1989 Webster v. Reproductive Health Services case, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Missouri law restricting the use of state funds and facilities for abortion, an early attempt to eat away at Roe v. Wade. Since then, the agenda of right-wing U.S. leaders, of which abortion is only a part, has become clear: […]

THE STRANGE CASE OF KAHLIL GIBRAN AND JUBRAN KHALIL JUBRAN

While his masterpiece The Prophet– originally published in English by Alfred Abraham Knopf in New York in 1923, and translated into at least 100 languages – is well-known by readers all over the world, the author’s biographical identity remains a mystery to most people: an American hippie writer or an old long-bearded Indian guru? The majority […]

MARILYN MONROE AND KAHLIL GIBRAN - MARRIED BY THE PROPHET

" The Prophet …It is very inspiring. It is more or less a pattern for everyday living." Marilyn Monroe Robert F. Saltzer - The New York Journal-America1 Marilyn Monroe was a self-educated literate, and it may come as a surprise to many that she was like most self-educated people, (including myself) an avid reader of just […]

THE PROPHET, TRANSLATED

“I have come to say a word...but if death prevents my word the book of eternity will not leave a word unspoken. What I do today in my solitude will be echoed tomorrow by the multitude.” - Kahlil Gibran Not long ago, I was asked to verify the official number of translations of Kahlil Gibran’s […]

Amnesty International wants Lebanon to combat sexual harassment

Amnesty International announced Wednesday that it is "shameful" that "women MPs in the Lebanese parliament, especially those who criticize the authorities, are being harassed by their male counterparts and by the Speaker himself simply because they are women in a parliament dominated by men." "Lawmakers , especially Speaker Nabih Berri, must shoulder the responsibility of […]

A Talk with Ahmed Salah Al-Mahdi on Magic, Fantasy and the 'Marooned Mirror' of Arabic Science Fiction

Story Synopsis: Two kids on summer holiday in the countryside in Egypt hear rumours of a haunted house and one of them, Faris, goes there and is never seen again. His twin sister Farah follows his trail and passes through an enchanted mirror and finds herself in a mysterious forest with talking squirrels. She learns […]

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