Banipal No 19 - A new look

After 18 issues we decided that Banipal needed a new look, a new handier size. We felt the magazine needed to become more elegant and at the same time easier for distributors and readers to handle. We sincerely hope you like it, with the possibilities it offers us of developing a wider circulation. Do let us know what you think of the new 160-page issue. In this Spring issue, we pay tribute to two internationally renowned Arab authors who have sadly both died through ill-health – Abdelrahman Munif and Mohamed Choukri. We feature the work of Moroccan poet Mohammed Bennis, who in 1996 co-founded the House of Poetry in Morocco. Bennis was primarily responsible for the establishment in 2000 by UNESCO of an annual World Poetry Day on 21 March to stimulate dialogue among cultures through poetry. Other poets include Abdo Wazen and Joumana Haddad from Lebanon, Zahir al-Ghafri (Oman), Ebrahim al-Kaldi (Kuwait), Housef al-Mohemeed (Saudi Arabia), and Marwan Ali and Mohja Kahf, both from Syria. Fiction writers include London-based Syrian author Ghalia Kabbani, from Morocco Latifa Baqa and Mohammed Sof, from Palestine Ziad Khaddash, from Tunisia Hassan Nasr and from Jordan Ahmad Nuaimi. The final of our 3-part series presenting Iraqi writers and poets opens with London-based poet Fawzi Karim, and then with an essay on Badr Shakir al-Sayyab’s Iraqi landscape by Kadhim Jihad, poems by Golala Nouri and Samuel Shimon, short stories by Lutfiyya al-Dulaimi, Najim A Mustafa, Kadhim al-Hallaq, Abid Jaafar, Salima Saleh and Mahmoud Said, and an excerpt from a novel on life inside Saddam’s Iraq by Sinan Antoon. Beginning a new series on the literary influences of contemporary Arab authors, Tunisian fiction writer and journalist Hassouna Mosbahi writes of his early and enduring acquaintance with the works of James Joyce. Our cover artist is Paris-based Yousef Abdelké, who also created the front cover for Banipal’s first issue. This issue is available as part of a subscription, or by itself at the inclusive price of £7 (UK), £10/ €15 (Rest of Europe) and £12 / $20 (Rest of World). BANIPAL magazine of modern Arab literature P O Box 22300 LONDON W13 8ZQ, UK editor@banipal.co.uk Tel: + 44 (0) 20 8568 9747 Fax: + 44 (0) 20 8568 8509 www.banipal.co.uk