tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23128295274544710412012-02-04T12:41:18.613ZFadia Faqirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05722594016952783518noreply@blogger.comBlogger131100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312829527454471041.post-5062156724229616812011-11-30T09:18:00.001Z2012-01-16T16:24:03.780Z

X-Rayed Zantedeschia by Boo Beaumont. It was winter. Lying in bed I watched us crack. You packed your bags, but left the black wedding suit labelled ‘Next’. Your manhood’s paraphernalia: cufflinks, ties, boxer shorts, the watch I bought you, cards, anniversarial vowing of undying devotion and my love for lemons that perhaps rubbed on you. They brought me so far: watching flames in

Fadia Faqirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05722594016952783518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312829527454471041.post-12771870413563232732011-10-08T08:40:00.001+01:002011-10-08T08:41:23.765+01:00

Jordanian women demonstrating, Jan, 2011 - copyrights 9 News Some Arab women argue that the revolution is about regimes not gender equality and the majority of Arab men share their views. Although Arab women are active participant in the Arab uprisings menfolk are not supporting them. Not one single slogan called for equality of Arab women or drew attention to their inferior position. Most

Fadia Faqirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05722594016952783518noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312829527454471041.post-43953436340269283652011-02-24T08:55:00.001Z2011-02-24T09:20:28.575Z

Egyptian demonstrator in Tahrir Square, Cairo. Copyrights Hossam el-Hamalawy  Adam Shatz concludes his article in the LRB by saying ‘if the Egyptian movement to be crushed it will be, in part, because of the conviction that ‘we are not them’.’ Egyptian men and women, Arabs and Muslims have been portrayed as other and inferior for so long that their uprising took the world by surprise. Neither

Fadia Faqirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05722594016952783518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312829527454471041.post-15039223972809883902011-01-15T10:27:00.066Z2011-01-15T10:52:14.328Z

Egyptian man cleans the gate  of Al-Qidissine Church The bomb attack at the Al-Qidissine Coptic Church in Egypt's northern city of Alexandria that took place after Midnight mass on New Year's Day, killing 21 people and injuring about 100 others is a cowardly and despicable act. It hardened Copt-Muslim binaries and might lead Egypt into a tragic sectarian war. Moreover the attack is a symptom

Fadia Faqirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05722594016952783518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312829527454471041.post-3019270519816588422010-11-26T09:43:00.017Z2010-12-27T11:58:05.680Z

In his blog ‘Beat and dust: Tangier's tang of history’, published in the Guardian newspaper, 23 November, 2010, Sam Jordison explores the counter cultural heritage of Tangiers, which was once a hub for experimental writers Like Paul Bowles, Jack Kerouac and William S Burroughs, Kenneth Williams and André Gide. The writer has read some of the literature set or written there and went to Morocco

Fadia Faqirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05722594016952783518noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312829527454471041.post-68639270175332658942010-09-30T10:27:00.002+01:002012-01-16T17:00:02.347Z

How can a property own a property? Haw can the last colony in the Arab world, namely women, have autonomy and sovereignty? How can Arab women reverse years of misogynistic interpretation of the Islamic canons? How can victims of domestic violence have rights to housing, owning property or inheritance? How can Muslim women today challenge the misogynistic Islamic interpretation of the Qur’an and

Fadia Faqirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05722594016952783518noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312829527454471041.post-27286448762316131672010-09-08T10:01:00.003+01:002012-01-16T16:40:43.766Z

Honour killings are the killings of women for deviation from sexual norms imposed by society. Families in different parts of the world associate their honour with the virginity of their unmarried daughters and with the chastity of the married ones. Most female violators of the honour code are killed instantly by their male relatives on the strength of a rumour. Honour crimes have been reported

Fadia Faqirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05722594016952783518noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312829527454471041.post-60725495176179702822010-08-09T11:49:00.002+01:002012-01-16T16:57:40.285Z

There was, there was not, at the oldest of times a country which extended from the Persian Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean. In that country, which I shall call Baghdad for the purposes of this narrative, Islam was the predominant religion.  Islam, or that particular interpretation of the hadith and Qur'an, perceives a specific role for women which in practice places them at the bottom of the social

Fadia Faqirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05722594016952783518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312829527454471041.post-37342043369581019272010-07-29T20:28:00.027+01:002012-01-16T16:56:35.000Z

The Arab book is a beleaguered creature, undernourished, undervalued and deprived of the very oxygen that makes it grow and prosper: freedom of expression. In the 22 countries of the Arab world with a combined population of 284 million, a ‘best seller’ may have a print run of just 5,000 copies, as a result of censorship, high illiteracy rates  – about 60 million adults in the Arab world today

Fadia Faqirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05722594016952783518noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312829527454471041.post-43842631459626021052010-07-14T08:50:00.006+01:002012-01-16T16:55:50.835Z

More than any other novel I can think of, The Cry of the Dove is suffused with the tastes and scents of food, herbs, trees, and flowers—often overlooked aspects of the natural world that affect us on a day-to-day basis. In the novel, all of the most poignant moments and many of the descriptions of women are focused around specific foods, beverages, and landscape

Fadia Faqirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05722594016952783518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312829527454471041.post-26221720310029800142010-07-07T13:36:00.014+01:002012-01-16T16:39:40.692Z

Dedicated to: Alia Mamdouh, Raja' Alem, Shadia Alem, Suhair Hammad, Ibtihal Salim, Chomin Hardi, Justine Barda, Jacinda Denison, Beth Bradley, Kim Berto, Jess Dowdell, Barton and Gretchen Cole, Billy Pape, the Arab American Community Coalition and the members of the Women Writers of the Arab World Steering Committee Grandma Shahrazad 'Get up girl and learn the names of trees! Look how

Fadia Faqirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05722594016952783518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312829527454471041.post-56885118082395990922010-07-06T21:50:00.008+01:002012-01-16T16:47:46.223Z

My third novel I write to bear witness and do justice. I also write to ward off fear, to exorcise it. Writing is a futile attempt to empower myself. The journey was and still is long, hard with no arrivals, but it is also rewarding and full of little surprises. Recollections in disquietude rather than tranquillity. A jasmine tree in a hostile garden. Torture chambers and tunnels in the

Fadia Faqirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05722594016952783518noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312829527454471041.post-61626743425448270692010-07-06T10:37:00.009+01:002012-01-16T16:49:18.098Z

On 17 February, 2007 my dear friend Mai Ghassoub passed away. On the 1 March she was cremated in London and the service was beautiful, dignified and fitting for her. I kept thinking that the coffin was too small for her generous heart. I shall miss her, her smile, her vivaciousness and her polyglot and limitless knowledge. We were bookish, you see, always reading around. Whenever we met

Fadia Faqirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05722594016952783518noreply@blogger.com0