The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind / If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? — Shelley
Even in winter, some flowers will bloom. Their blossoms may be fragile, sad and short-lived, but the strongest of all flowers are those which fight the ice. Each petal reminds us that the dead land is yet not dead, and that dull roots soon will stir with spring rain and with that, memory and desire may mix. Here is a bouquet of long-stem pieces that do not fear the frost.
— Zein El-Amine recounts a distant evening of television watching, fueled by zajal and arak.
— Maymanah Farhat explores the sculpture of Sahand Hesamiyan.
— Mona Abaza reports on the challenges facing revolutionary graffiti in Egypt.
Also, last month marked the twentieth anniversary of the passing of Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, the Palestinian-Iraqi polymath (artist, critic, essayist, translator, novelist, and poet) who, perhaps more than any other individual, created literary modernism in the Arab world. We mark this loss by two, long o translations:
— Thalia Beaty translates Jabra`s landmark 1967 essay, "Jerusalem: Time Embodied."
— Elliott Colla translates Jabra`s 1959 poem, "Ramparts."