No one dared crossing the threshold of such topics before, but Samar wings her way in with elegance.

On Sunday evening, a crowd of about one hundred expatriates, foreign journalists and Anglophone Egyptians congregated between the bookshelves of the AUC Press Bookstore overlooking Tahrir Square to congratulate internationally acclaimed novelist and writer Alaa al-Aswany on the launch of his latest book, “On the State of Egypt: A Novelist’s Provocative Reflections.” The book is a selection of al-Aswany’s weekly columns published in translation and is accompanied by an introductory leaflet entitled “On Tahrir Square, February 2011.”

I finally got a hold of Lamia Ziade’s book, ‘Bye bye Babylone’. I had been looking forward to buying it since last September, having seen some of the book’s spreads before its publication. I had immediately spotted some images on the spreads that felt so familiar: the Beirut Corniche, but mainly the hand grenade, Kalashnikov, RPG and M16. I was both amused and surprised with my knowledge of these weapons’ names and shapes.

Is it that there is more literary activities in the Arab world, or is it that they’re gaining visibility? For us readers and book professionals, it’s all good news!
The Sudanese Cultural Center Abdel Karim Mirghani has recently advertised the third edition of the Tayeb Saleh creative writing competition.