drug abuse, urfi marriages and Aláa al Aswany

A couple of weeks ago, i had a blogpost on social taboos and the new project against drugs by Amr Khaled, with Shaábola joining in as poster boy for the project. Now al Jazeera english, everywomen had a programme on the 25th of April on another aspect of drug abuse. The number of drug abusing men is increasing in Egyptian society according to the show, one reason being the dire economic situattion. The show looks into the effect this has on the women living with these men, who becomes the de facto sole breadowners for the entire family.

The second is about the practice of Urfi marriages, the current attempt on stopping it, the spread of the practice among young couples, as a substitute for ¨real marriages¨, which has decreased. The effects it can have on the women when the relationships fails, it´s written by Carolynne Wheeler for the Daily Telegraph.

Last, but in no way the least, the New York Times Magazine has a six page feature on dentist/author Aláa al Aswany, who became famous for his bestselling novel the Yaqoubian building, and right now his new novel, Chicago is available in english(AUC Press), french and german translations. I practically read Yaqoubian from cover to cover, only stopping for meals and sleep, my terrible flu that kept me in bed at the time helped, but i have to agree with the readers who made it the most read book in the Arab world on this side of the 21 Century, so far.

Egyptian Culture theme in Qantara

The new edition of the German online magazine Qantara is out. Qantara is a magazine that mainly focuses on the cultural aspects of the meeting between the Muslim World and the West. Not the clash, but rather the synergy between the two.

This time they have a bit of an Egyptian cultural theme with an article on Baha Taher, whom recently was awarded the newly established Arabic booker prize for his novel Sunset Oasis. More on the Arab booker can be found here. There is also an article on Alaá al Aswany, who recently went to Germany and the city of Cologne to participate in lit COLOGNE, one of the most prestigious book festivals in Europe, presenting his latest novel Chicago, translated to German recently. On top of that there is a review of the latest film by the doyen of Egyptian film, Yousef Chahine. Ariana Mirza takes a look at Chaos or heya fawda as it´s called in it´s original language.

Another article takes a look at the current Arab blogging scene under the promising headline of Blogging in the Arab World: Lessons in Democracy, written by Alfred Hackensberger

Alaa al Aswany quote on freedom of talk

The best selling author, political commentator-activist and dentist Alaa al Aswany was quoted as saying this in yesterday´s Observer.

¨'In Egypt, we have freedom of talk, which is not the same as freedom of speech,' he says. 'In a democracy, freedom of speech is a tool of evaluation and change, but in my country, you can write whatever you want, but also the government does whatever it wants. The ruling party is controlling everything so you are not going to change anything. Every now and again you have a case like [Suleiman]. I have friends who have been arrested and tortured, but this is more because of political actions than writing. ¨

The name within the brackets is of course Kareem, who´s currently serving a four year prison term for insulting Islam and the President.

As i have written about earlier on here, the novel Yacoubian building was launched in the UK in February this year. The coming weekend will mark the beginning of a joint effort by ICA and Harper Collins to maximize the chances for a Yaquobian frenzy in Britain, The film is released this Friday and the paperback version has been out in the bookshops for the last week.

Gavin Esler interviewed Alaa al Aswany on hardtalk extra in February, you can find it here. The author has published another novel in arabic, Chicago which was first serialized in the Cairo weekly al Destour, and then published by Dar al Shorouk . An English translation is expected in 2008 by the AUC Press in Cairo.

Those of you who live in the UK, and have not had the opportunity yet to read or watch the film are in for a treat.

UPDATE: Chicago, Aswany´s latest novel has now been translated to french. You can find a review in Le Monde´s book supplement at arabist.