الزراف Zaraf

  Translated by   ELISABETH JAQUETTE 1—Idiot The oldest boys in the neighborhood—“bullies,” as our Egyptian neighbors would say—chased that boy… chased me .   I’d long been obsessed with watching Egyptian TV shows and films, sneaking into the cinema to see them because in our house it was forbidden… “forbidden, boy, to go there.ˮ According to my mother, grandmother, and the other women in the neighborhood, screens are the devil’s handiwork: they corrupt good boys and girls. Of course, they’re poor women, without an ounce of luck.  Since we’ve mentioned girls, the truth is that I’m as afraid of them as of the boys who chase me, but it’s another type of fear. It’s more like dread, the idea of standing in front of an incredibly beautiful girl and saying to her, as people do, “I love you.ˮ I’ve practiced a lot in the bathroom while masturbating, but nothing’s changed; white water flows, mixing with the poorly made soap, and in the end, I realize that I’ve lost the image of the girl who wal

  Ossama Lotfy Fateem   , Tuesday 13 Dec 2022 Ila New York fi 87 Yawman (To New York in 87 Days), Emad Blake, Alexandria: Ibiidi Publishing, 2019 Share Facebook X WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn   The sea has always been an inspiration for writers. Commanding ships, reaching ports, and living the non-traditional life between land and sea were pictured mostly as a triumph for mankind over the sea. Novels like Moby Dick, Treasure Island, The Oldman and the Sea -- to name a few -- are masterpieces that continue to inspire readers and writers alike. In their footsteps Emad Blake wrote To New York in 87 Days. The novel presents two facts: the first Omani and Arab ship, Al Sultana, to reach New York was in 1840; and the main character Ahmed Ben Nooman Al-Kaabi was the chief officer of the ship.  In the book, the reader cannot tell facts from fiction. The author manages to get the reader involved in the journey, its details, and the characters that were instrumental in making the trip a success. I

 Emad Blake The poem Songs of Solitude by Alsaddiq Alraddi, performed by the renowned Sudanese singer Mustafa Sayed Ahmed, held significant power in its time, addressing the multifaceted themes of solitude and isolation experienced by the generation of the nineties in Sudan. It was a period of time characterized by darkness punctuated with a glimmer of light that prompted a deeper introspection. This period marked the era of the Muslim Brotherhood's that ended in 2019, coinciding with a youth uprising to a generation had long been living in isolation. However, the advent of social media and the internet played a pivotal role in dispelling the dust of the past. The poem took on the responsibility of redefining the dimensions of Sudanese poetic text by reconsidering the self within the framework of postmodern concepts. These concepts allowed for a re-examination of identity and the capacity to shape a new world—one born from fresh perspectives that embrace the future, contrasting