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Arab Writers Union
The Arab Writers Union (ar.: اتحاد الكتاب العرب) is an association of Arab writers, founded in 1969, in Damascus, Syria, at the initiative of a group of Arab writers including Syrian novelist Hanna Mina. In 2008, the union was moved from Damascus to Cairo and in 2015 to Abu Dhabi. Its current president is Muhammad Al-Hourani. In 2010, the Union published a list of the "100 Best Arabic novels," although the list in fact contained 105 entries. It ranked Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz's ''Cairo Trilogy'' as the best Arabic-language novel, followed by ''In Search of Walid Masoud'' by Jabra Ibrahim Jabra and ''Honor'' by Sonallah Ibrahim. Controversies On 27 January 1995, following Syrian pressure, it was announced in Damascus that the Arab Writers Union had expelled the Syrian poet Adunis, for his participation in a meeting in Spain in 1993 that was attended by Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres. This prompted widespread criticism among Arab intellectuals, with H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi is the capital city of the United Arab Emirates. The city is the seat of the Abu Dhabi Central Capital District, the capital city of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, and the UAE's List of cities in the United Arab Emirates, second-most populous city, after Dubai. The city is situated on a T-shaped island, extending into the Persian Gulf from the central-western coast of the UAE. Abu Dhabi is located on an island in the Persian Gulf, off the Central West Coast. Most of the city and the Emirate reside on the mainland connected to the rest of the country. , Abu Dhabi's urban area had an estimated population of 2.5 million, out of 3.8 million in the emirate of Abu Dhabi. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority is headquartered in the city, and was the Sovereign wealth fund#Largest sovereign wealth funds, world's 3rd largest sovereign wealth fund in 2022. Abu Dhabi itself has over a trillion US dollars worth of assets under management in a combination of various List of coun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hanna Mina
Hanna Mina (; 9 March 1924 – 21 August 2018) was a Syrian novelist, described in '' Literature from the "Axis of Evil"'' as the country's "most prominent" writer. Words Without Borders, '' Literature from the "Axis of Evil"'', , 2006, pp.55-6: brief biography His early novels belong to the movement of social realism in the literature of Syria, and focus on class conflict; his later works contain "a more symbolic analysis of class differences". His writing on the suffering of ordinary people was partly inspired by his own experiences, alternately working as a stevedore, barber and journalist; his autobiographical short story, "On the Sacks", was published in 1976. Several of his works written in Arabic are set during the period of the French Mandate of Syria, or in the period immediately following independence. Mina has authored about 40 novels, varying in imaginary value and narrative significance. But his achievement lies in the foundation he laid for this literary genre. For ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cairo
Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of largest cities in the Arab world, the Arab world, and List of largest metropolitan areas of the Middle East, the Middle East. The Greater Cairo metropolitan area is List of largest cities, one of the largest in the world by population with over 22.1 million people. The area that would become Cairo was part of ancient Egypt, as the Giza pyramid complex and the ancient cities of Memphis, Egypt, Memphis and Heliopolis (ancient Egypt), Heliopolis are near-by. Located near the Nile Delta, the predecessor settlement was Fustat following the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 641 next to an existing ancient Roman empire, Roman fortress, Babylon Fortress, Babylon. Subsequently, Cairo was founded by the Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimid dynasty in 969. It ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naguib Mahfouz
Naguib Mahfouz Abdelaziz Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Basha (, ; 11 December 1911 – 30 August 2006) was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature. In awarding the prize, the Swedish Academy described him as a writer "who, through works rich in nuance – now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous – has formed an Arabian narrative art that applies to all mankind". Mahfouz is regarded as one of the first contemporary writers in Arabic literature, along with Taha Hussein, to explore themes of existentialism. He is the only Egyptian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. He published 35 novels, over 350 short stories, 26 screenplays, hundreds of op-ed columns for Egyptian newspapers, and seven plays over a 70-year career, from the 1930s until 2004. All of his novels take place in Egypt, and always mention the lane which equals the world. His most famous works include '' The Cairo Trilogy'' and '' Children of Gebelawi''. Many of Mahfouz's works have been m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jabra Ibrahim Jabra
Jabra Ibrahim Jabra (28 August 1919 – 12 December 1994) () was an Iraqi-Palestinian author, artist and intellectual born in Adana in French-occupied Cilicia to a Syriac Orthodox Christian family. His family survived the Seyfo Genocide and fled to the British Mandate of Palestine in the early 1920s. Jabra was educated at government schools under the British-mandatory educational system in Bethlehem and Jerusalem, such as the Government Arab College, and won a scholarship from the British Council to study at the University of Cambridge. Following the events of 1948, Jabra fled Jerusalem and settled in Baghdad, where he found work teaching at the University of Baghdad. In 1952 he was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Humanities fellowship to study English literature at Harvard University. Over the course of his literary career, Jabra wrote novels, short stories, poetry, criticism, and a screenplay. He was a prolific translator of modern English and French literature into Arabi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sonallah Ibrahim
Son'allah Ibrahim ( ''Ṣunʻ Allāh Ibrāhīm'') (born 1937) is an Egyptian novelist and short story writer and one of the " Sixties Generation" who is known for his leftist views which are expressed rather directly in his work. His novels, especially later ones, incorporate many excerpts from newspapers, magazines and other political sources as a way to enlighten the people about a certain political or social issue. Because of his political opinions he was imprisoned during the 1960s; his imprisonment is featured in his first book, ''That Smell'' (تلك الرائحة), which was one of the first writings in Egyptian literature to adopt a modernist tinge. In harmony with his political ideas, in 2003 he refused to accept a prestigious literary award worth £E100,000 from Egypt's Ministry of Culture. Biography Sonallah Ibrahim was born in Cairo in 1937. His father was an upper-middle class civil servant; his mother, from a poor background, had been a nurse hired to look aft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Damascus
Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Known colloquially in Syria as () and dubbed, poetically, the "City of Jasmine" ( ), Damascus is a major cultural center of the Levant and the Arab world. Situated in southwestern Syria, Damascus is the center of a large metropolitan area. Nestled among the eastern foothills of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range inland from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean on a plateau above sea level, Damascus experiences an arid climate because of the rain shadow effect. The Barada, Barada River flows through Damascus. Damascus is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. First settled in the 3rd millennium BC, it was chosen as the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate from 661 to 750. Afte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adunis
Ali Ahmad Said Esber (, Levantine Arabic, North Levantine ; born 1 January 1930), also known by the pen name Adonis or Adunis ( ), is a Syrian people, Syrian poet, essayist and translator. Maya Jaggi, writing for The Guardian stated "He led a modernist revolution in the second half of the 20th century, "exerting a seismic influence" on Arabic poetry comparable to T.S. Eliot's in the anglophone world." Adonis's publications include twenty volumes of poetry and thirteen of criticism. His dozen books of translation to Arabic include the poetry of Saint-John Perse and Yves Bonnefoy, and the first complete Arabic translation of Ovid's "Metamorphoses" (2002). His multi-volume anthology of Arabic poetry ("Dīwān ash-shi'r al-'arabī"), covering almost two millennia of verse, has been in print since its publication in 1964. A perennial contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature, Adonis has been described as the greatest living poet of the Arab world. Biography Early life and education ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spain
Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Europe and the fourth-most populous European Union member state. Spanning across the majority of the Iberian Peninsula, its territory also includes the Canary Islands, in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean, the Balearic Islands, in the Western Mediterranean Sea, and the Autonomous communities of Spain#Autonomous cities, autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in mainland Africa. Peninsular Spain is bordered to the north by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; to the east and south by the Mediterranean Sea and Gibraltar; and to the west by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean. Spain's capital and List of largest cities in Spain, largest city is Madrid, and other major List of metropolitan areas in Spain, urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shimon Peres
Shimon Peres ( ; ; born Szymon Perski, ; 2 August 1923 – 28 September 2016) was an Israeli politician and statesman who served as the prime minister of Israel from 1984 to 1986 and from 1995 to 1996 and as the president of Israel from 2007 to 2014. He was a member of twelve Cabinet of Israel, cabinets and represented five political parties in a political career spanning 70 years. Peres was elected to the Knesset in November 1959 and except for three months out of office in early 2006, served as a member of the Knesset continuously until he was elected president in 2007. Serving in the Knesset for 48 years (with the first uninterrupted stretch lasting more than 46 years), Peres is the longest serving member in the Knesset's history. At the time of his retirement from politics in 2014, he was the world's oldest head of state and was considered the last link to Israel's founding generation, as well as the last Prime Minister to make aliyah rather than being born on territory that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Najem Wali
Najem Wali (; born 1956) is an Iraqi novelist and journalist, based in Germany. Life Born in Amarah, Wali fled Iraq in 1980 after the outbreak of the Iran–Iraq War. He lives in Hamburg. Wali has published seven books. He is a correspondent for '' Al Hayat'' and has written in ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'', ''Die Zeit'', ''Neue Zürcher Zeitung'', and elsewhere. In 2009 he published "Reise in das Herz des Feindes" ("Journey into the Heart of the Enemy"), an account of his travels in Israel, which presented a positive view of the country. Officially Najem Wali was – as with millions of Iraqis – born on July 1, 1956. But the truth is that he was born on October 20, 1956, in the south of Iraq. This is just one of many stories in the country of thousand and one dictatorship und thousand and more wars. Having finished his A-Levels in Basra and Amara (his official places of birth, by the way) he began his studies of German Literature at the University of Baghdad. Having passed his uni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, U.S. invasion of Iraq. He previously served as the Vice President of Iraq, vice president from 1968 to 1979 and also as the prime minister of Iraq, prime minister from 1979 to 1991 and later from 1994 to 2003. A leading member of the Ba'ath Party, Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, he espoused Ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, while the policies and political ideas he championed are collectively known as Saddamism. Born near the city of Tikrit to a Sunni Islam, Sunni Arabs, Arab family, Saddam joined the revolutionary Ba'ath Party in 1957. He played a key role in the 17 July Revolution that brought the Ba'athists to power and made him Vice President of Iraq, vice president under Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr. During his tenure ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
