Fall 2007
Krystel Abimeri
By Krystel Abimeri Fall 2007 | ArteZine Beirut, in many ways, is an “Urbs Incognita,” a city that has been presented only through clichés. The euphoric expressions—“mosaic of communities,” “crossroads of cultures,” “Switzerland of the Middle East”—have been used and abused. Despite all this romanticising, this weary city seems condemned to be destroyed after each reconstruction…
Mahmoud Darwish
By Mahmoud Darwish Fall 2007 | ArteZine When the heart has been broken, it cries out: Samarkand She is the partridge…. *** Can you not weep tomorrow? Perhaps I can But does this dew descend Whenever the road to Damascus finds me I gather this echo Just as the lovers gather the tears from the night…
Nizar Qabbani
By Nizar Qabbani Fall 2007 | ArteZine 1 My voice rings out, this time, from Damascus It rings out from the house of my mother and father In Sham. The geography of my body changes. The cells of my blood become green. My alphabet is green. In Sham. A new mouth emerges for my mouth A…
Suhail Shadud, Marlin Dick
By Suhail Shadoud and Marlin Dick Fall 2007 | ArteZine Story by Suhail Shadoud Translated by Marlin Dick Four in the morning, in the East Village. A band’s playing in the loft of the restaurant. A girl’s playing with the band. I know her. It’s a Brazilian song, and my head could ignite a thousand fires. The fire…
Flavia Codsi
By ArteEast Fall 2007 | Gallery ArteEast continues to bring you the best of the Beirut art scene with its fall 2007 Virtual Gallery exhibition featuring the work of painter Flavia Codsi. Codsi redefines realism and modernism by painting classic subjects in ways that shake up typical art historical chronologies and preconceived notions of contemporary Lebanese…
Summer 2007
Sholeh Wolpé
By Sholeh Wolpé Summer 2007 | ArteZine For Omid On their way to Canada in a red Mazda, my brother and his friend, PhDs and little sense, stopped at the border and the guard leaned forward, asked: Where you boys heading? My brother, Welcome to Canada poster in his eyes replied: Mexico. The guard blinked, stepped…
Baharak Sedigh
By Baharak Sedigh Summer 2007 | ArteZine the desertification of our planet approaches slowly but like our own death it comes steadily and with promise yet wise men and women holy souls who all cry faith hang on to their corners at opposite ends of the old city living together but in hatred preaching the word…
Persis Karim
By Persis Karim and Nahid Rachlin Summer 2007 | ArteZine Conducted by Persis M. Karim Nahid Rachlin came to the United States more than three decades ago as a wide-eyed young woman seeking a college education. Like many early Iranian immigrants, she came at a time when US-Iranian relations were positive and when the United States actively supported Mohammad…
Antares Alleman, Arash Manzori
By Arash Manzori and Antares Alleman Summer 2007 | ArteZine The Odyssey is traditionally considered the founding pillar of Western Literature. We are taught that Odysseus’ heroic deeds are to be emulated, his hubris to be shunned. However, perhaps Odysseus is not the hero he is presented to be. Harold Bloom notes that Odysseus is a “universal figure,”…
Nagihan Haliloglu
By Nagihan Haliloglu Summer 2007 | ArteZine The various mass-displacements that have happened in the 20th century have led to the much popular genre of diasporic memoir. In cases where the author of the memoir is female and Muslim, this genre has converged with that of the female coming of age, or emancipatory novel to produce…
