Category Archives: Literature

The Price of Freedom

Gender and Sexuality, Lebanon, Literature


The Price of Freedom: A Reading of Ghada al-Samman’s Beirut ’75
by George N. El-Hage, Ph.D.

“Beirut has ruined me, that’s all!”

“That’s not true,” he replied, “You women all accuse Beirut of ruining you when the truth of the matter is that the seeds of corruption were already deep inside you. All Beirut did was to give them a place to thrive and become visible. It’s given them a climate where they can grow.”

“She wondered to herself…if they had allowed my body to experience wholesome, sound relationships in Damascus – would I have lost my way to this extent?”

A sense of alienation, pessimism, and ultimate nihilism, which stems from al-Samman’s existential viewpoint, envelops the main characters in Beirut ‘75. The protagonists (Yasmeena, Farah, Ta’aan, Abu’l-Malla, and Abu Mustafa) feel trapped, alone, and disconnected from each other and from society. Each character’s personal struggle sheds light on some negative aspect of Lebanese society as seen by al-Samaan in 1975. Each character is exploited in some way, either sexually, politically or economically. Although these underlying evils of Lebanese society may have existed, al-Samman only shows a unilateral view colored by her own perception of reality. She fails to offer a multidimensional and more realistic view of the society at that time. In addition, she fails to successfully convey the depth of existential crisis that each of her characters endures, consequently resulting in characters that remain shallow and who do not convince the reader that their tragic demise is warranted.

The first chapter of the novel repeatedly foreshadows the characters’ impending doom; nevertheless, the reader is still left with a sense of bewilderment at such an astonishing and violent end to an otherwise ordinary set of characters. Did they really merit such a catastrophic conclusion of events? Several reviews have been very critical of such a sensational conclusion, and some critics, as well as many readers, have been shocked and dismayed. The author loves to admit, though, that she herself was puzzled with this conclusion as she tries to justify it to the public: Continue reading The Price of Freedom →

Letters to My Son, #3

Ethics, Immigration Issues, Lebanon, Literature, Poetry


Lebanese village by Saadi Sinevi

by George Nicolas El-Hage, Ph.D.This is part three of a series from my book: The Return of the Hero and the Resurrection of the City, originally written in Arabic and translated by George N. El-Hage and edited by MaryAnn Del Vecchio, Ph.D. For part one, click here. For part two click here.September 1988Monterey, CAThird LetterI plant you in my eyes, a song of virgin longing, and I draw your smile over my sails bound towards the future.I am longing for return, and you are my hope and the eternal truth.Your two hands, my little one, are the cradle of love, and I am but a Sufi drowning in the deluge of meditation.I wear the gown of pain, and my feet are rooted in the glowing clay of creativity.May peace be upon you the day you were born and the day you embraced me and I felt that I held a bouquet of innocence and embraced a flaming sword.Glory be to your miraculous childhood.You are the lamb of peace, the joy of life, the tear of yearning and the hope of resurrection.My letters to you are but the embers of my burning thoughts, for you are the flame of prophecy and the wings of inspiration.You carry me to the world of the unknown and plant me in the fields of lilies and poems.You throw me on the sidewalks of the past and desert me on the shores of faraway islands.There, I metamorphose and transform into tropical plants, exploding with pleasure and burdened with forbidden fruits.I take off the tied gown of civilization and become naught but the flame of truth.I become one with the elements and melt like dew in the eyes of bereaving mothers. Continue reading Letters to My Son, #3 →

Letters to My Son, #2

Ethics, Immigration Issues, Lebanon, Literature, Poetry


Lebanese triptych by Joseph Matta

by George Nicolas El-Hage, Ph.D.
This is part two of a series from my book: The Return of the Hero and the Resurrection of the City, originally written in Arabic and translated by George N. El-Hage and edited by MaryAnn Del Vecchio, Ph.D. For part one, click here.

July 1988
Monterey, CA
First Letter

In the name of God, I preface my first letter to you, my son. You are the stream of tenderness that flows in my heart and fills my cup. You are my provisions for the coming years and the lantern of my future. You are the most precious possession that I have in this world. You were gifted to me at my most blessed moment of contentment and peace. That day, you were formed in my conscience, a graceful thought, and in your mother’s womb, a clot of blood. That day, I was very conscious of what I was doing. To your mother, I said: “Come, my love, let us create a son, and his name shall be Nicolas.” I knew that the newcomer will be you. An inner feeling and a sense of the mystical awakened inside of me an unmistakable realization of your arrival, my joy, my boy, whose playground is the wide world while you remain ever present with me and within me.

Your wide open eyes are two lakes of emeralds. You are not of flesh and blood. You are the essence of love, the expanse of light, a river of warmth and the glimmer of hope. Let time stand behind us because we existed before time. As for me, you are my whole existence. Your smile permeates the world with joy. Your little hands are the perfumed lilies of the fields and your face the shining sun of light and truth. As you embrace me, time stops, and within me, the glory of the Lord shines bright. I declare to you our eternal relationship: You, me and your mother. Let all others who have populated my books come out. They are naught but a mob of “unnecessary duplicates.” You are not alone. I am with you forever. I give you more soul from mine, more love from my love and more heart from my heart. Your presence overfills my existence and leaves no space for any other. You, alone, are my preoccupation, and at your feet, time stops. You are ever-present in my memory. You are my fruit, my roots and my future. You are my glorious history. Continue reading Letters to My Son, #2 →

Letters to My Son, #1

Ethics, Languages, Lebanon, Literature, Poetry


Art by Khalil Gibran

by George Nicolas El-Hage, Ph.D.
From my book: The Return of the Hero and the Resurrection of the City, originally written in Arabic and translated by George N. El-Hage and edited by MaryAnn Del Vecchio, Ph.D.

Forward

These four letters, selected out of ten, are in fact a personal account of my feelings as a father, an immigrant, and a poet, towards my son. They are an emotional register of the dilemma of alienation, exile and loneliness that faces every immigrant, Lebanese or not, who, for various circumstances, leaves his or her country and emigrates abroad. I happen to be a Lebanese man who traveled to America during the Lebanese war to continue my education and make a future for me, my parents and my siblings. Like many cultures, being the eldest son in a Lebanese family carries a huge responsibility that falls on your shoulders and becomes your cause.

America, as it was known, was “the land of endless opportunities, the generous and welcoming land, where money grows on trees,” and “attaining the American Dream was only a measure of your determination, perseverance and hard work.” Indeed, this is the land where endless possibilities abound and the reality of forging a better life has, and still does, lure people from around the world. In fact, may God bless America.

It was not an easy task to write these letters to my son and to put my innermost feelings out there in the open. But as a poet, it is my mission to share because poetry is the art of the unusual encounter with the inevitable and the holy, and the poet’s mission is to always take the road rarely traveled and to return and inform fellow beings. Continue reading Letters to My Son, #1 →

Petition for a Kahlil Gibran US Postage Stamp

Contemporary Art, Immigration Issues, Lebanon, Literature


Sign the Petition for a Kahlil Gibran US Postage Stamp!

Why Gibran?

Since his passing, fans of Gibran Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) have called for a fitting tribute to the poet, author, artist, and philosopher, who remains one of the most renowned figures in the world literary landscape. For Arab Americans and Arabs daunted by political, financial and social uncertainty, Gibran holds a valuable place as the immigrant voice in America. Arab Americans and Arabs have long ago claimed Gibran’s achievements as their own, proudly holding his life and works close to their hearts.

Perhaps this protective emotional engulfing has to do partly with Gibran’s own quest to belong. Early on in his childhood, the Lebanese born poet was rendered homeless after his father was sent to prison for tax evasion, and his property was impounded. Shortly thereafter, the family emigrated to Boston’s South End, where non-English speaking Gibran was told he should Anglicize his name, and refer to himself simply as Kahlil Gibran. Continue reading Petition for a Kahlil Gibran US Postage Stamp →

On the beauty of late medieval florilegium

Anthropology/Sociology, Books You Should Read, Literature, Orientalism, Scholars


Jean-Léon Gérôme’s Le charmeur des serpentes, 1880

In 2007 I published Reading Orientalism: Said and the Unsaid with the University of Washington Press. The build-up to its publishing is a story that spans almost six years. Originally I had planned to include a chapter on Said’s Orientalism in a book I was writing called Islam Obscured: The Rhetoric of Anthropological Representation, which was published in the SAR series of Palgrave in 2005. But as I began to work on the chapter, it quickly took on a life of its own. I had first read Orientalism when returning from ethnographic fieldwork in Yemen in 1979. It sat on my bookshelf and I dutifully included the author’s “introduction” (the most readable part of the book for undergraduate students) in my course on Middle East anthropology. But as I delved back into Said’s book and started collecting the original reviews (which turned out to be more than 50) and the plethora of writings about Orientalism, I discovered that this dense book was fraught with errors of fact and methodological missteps.

While working on both books-to-be, I delivered a paper at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in 2001 entitled “Dissing Orientalist Discourse: What Said Said and What Ethnographers Did,” followed by talks on my evolving text at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, the University of London and New York University. The AAA talk prompted a young employee of Routledge to ask if I was thinking of writing a book on the subject. Naively, I said yes and after another year had a draft ready to drop off in their New York office. Time went by and by and there was no word from Routledge. Eventually, after several months, I received a letter from the Sociology editor noting that Routledge at the time no longer had an Anthropology editor and my manuscript was not of interest to him. I thus learned that there were sociologists who seemed not to know much about Edward Said. But they did send the reviewer’s comments and these were well taken. In fact my first draft was in need of major revision.

So revise I did and then I accidentally stumbled across a website of a book agent inviting queries. Continue reading On the beauty of late medieval florilegium →

Faith confronts culture in “American Dervish”

Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Judaism, Literature


Author Ayad Akhtar, left

by JENNIFER S. BRYSON, Contending Modernities, August 7, 2012

American Dervish, by American actor and author Ayad Akhtar, is set in one of the many places in the world with vibrant Muslim communities. In this case: Wisconsin.

Akhtar skillfully develops wonderful characters. As I delved into this novel I kept wanting to find more and more time to read so I could find out what would happen to characters such as the main figure Hayat; Mina, a dear family friend; and Mina’s suitor, the kind Jewish doctor Nathan. Also, Akhtar powerfully tackles the serious, generally taboo topics of Jew-hatred and domestic abuse. (This courageous novel goes beyond abstract “anti-Semitism”; American Dervish confronts outright hatred and its real-life consequences.)

Quran “translation” conundrum

Along the way, American Dervish has one of the most interesting wrestling matches I’ve seen yet over whether or not to make the Quran accessible in languages other than Arabic for people who do not know Arabic. (While I as a non-Muslim am an onlooker to these intra-Muslim “wrestling” matches, I myself have sat through more than a few Catholic Masses in Latin trying to figure out why we weren’t using a language the people present would actually understand.) Continue reading Faith confronts culture in “American Dervish” →

The Quran as a Great Book: Muslim Perspectives, 6

Calligraphy, Islam: Introduction, Literature, Muhammad, Qur'an


The angel Israfil from the Aja’ib al-Makhluqat of al-Qazwini, Mamluk, period. Illustration in the British Museum

[The following is part six of a series on a lecture presented in the Hofstra Great Books Series on December 5, 1993. For part five, click here.].

Concluding Remarks

The most important part of any lecture, assuming one is not completely turned off in the first minute or two, is supposed to come after the words “in conclusion.” In conclusion. This means there must be a need to conclude something. Regarding the Quran as a great book, there is little need to conclude anything. The mere fact that this talk was scheduled and that you came shows that a sacred scripture commanding the attention of so many people on earth warrants consideration. Regarding how Muslims view the greatness of their Great Book, there is too much to conclude, too great a gap in experience, too challenging a call for empathy. Rather than try to tell you what the Quran is in a nutshell, I would simply ask that sometime soon you try reading it or at least a selection of excerpts. A good place to start is the superb translation of select texts by Michael Sells’ Approaching the Quran.

However, having raised the issue of The Satanic Verses in a lecture on the Quran, a final comment does need to be made. If I were to simply tell you that most Muslims approach their sacred book quite differently, as I see it, than others approach their scriptures, you would probably say “alright, so things are different, so they have a right and we have a right, so what?” Even if the statement of faith outlined in the fatiha or the line of reasoning articulated by a brilliant scholar like Ibn al-‘Arabi is instructive, you would probably still walk away tonight basically unchallenged and unchanged. Continue reading The Quran as a Great Book: Muslim Perspectives, 6 →