{"id":10832,"date":"2013-09-01T13:11:04","date_gmt":"2013-09-01T17:11:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=10832"},"modified":"2013-09-01T13:13:04","modified_gmt":"2013-09-01T17:13:04","slug":"writers-on-egypts-constitution-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/writers-on-egypts-constitution-committee\/","title":{"rendered":"Writers on Egypt’s Constitution Committee"},"content":{"rendered":"

via Arab Literature (in English)<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Two Novelists, Poet on Egypt\u2019s 50-member Constitution\u00a0Committee<\/h3>\n

BY\u00a0MLYNXQUALEY<\/a>\u00a0on<\/em>\u00a00<\/a>\u00a0)<\/h4>\n
On Sunday afternoon, Egypt\u2019s\u00a0presidential spokesman Ihab Badawi announced names of the 50 member-committee given the job of re-drafting the suspended 2012 constitution:<\/em>\""Nostalgia"<\/a>\u201cNostalgia\u201d by Mohammed Abla<\/p>\n

It should at the very least be a compelling read, as two novelists \u2014 Mohammed Salmawy and Haggag Oddoul, and a poet, Sayed Hegab\u00a0\u2013 are on the committee.<\/p>\n

All have other identities:\u00a0Salmawy<\/a>\u00a0is the long-time head of the Egyptian Writers Union, and has been a journalist and an aide to the Minister of Information; Hegab is apparently also on the High Council of Culture; while\u00a0Oddoul<\/a>\u00a0is also an activist and campaigner for Nubian rights.<\/p>\n

Salmawy has several works that he\u2019s composed in English, including\u00a0Come Back Tomorrow<\/em>, published by Three Continents Press (1985),\u00a0Two Down the Drain<\/em>, published by theThe General Egyptian Book Organization (1993), and\u00a0Naguib Mahfouz at Sidi Gaber : Reflections of a Nobel Laureate from conversations with Mohamed Salmawy<\/em>, published by the AUC Press (2001).<\/p>\n

Two of Oddoul\u2019s works have appeared in English:\u00a0Nights of Musk: Stories from Old Nubia<\/i>, trans. (2005) and\u00a0My Uncle Is On Labor<\/i>, trans. \u00a0Ahmed Fathy<\/a>\u00a0(2008).<\/p>\n

You can read more about Hegab in \u201cSon of a widowed city<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t think that\u2019s enough book lovers, there\u2019s also Hoda Elsadda, who is a literary scholar and\u00a0was a judge for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These four join visual artist Mohammed Abla and director Khaled Youssef on the 50-member committe. Only two members on the committee are labeled, on the\u00a0Ahram Online\u00a0<\/em>list (which must have some typos, as there are repeated names), as \u201cIslamist currents.\u201d This means artists have more than twice the representation of Islamists? A strange list.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

via Arab Literature (in English): Two Novelists, Poet on Egypt\u2019s 50-member Constitution\u00a0Committee BY\u00a0MLYNXQUALEY\u00a0on\u00a0SEPTEMBER 1, 2013 \u2022\u00a0(\u00a00\u00a0) On Sunday afternoon, Egypt\u2019s\u00a0presidential spokesman Ihab Badawi announced names of the 50 member-committee given the job of re-drafting...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1012,940],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arab-spring","category-egypt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10832"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10836,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10832\/revisions\/10836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}