Caricature of Mahmud Amin al-ʿAlim (L) & Abd al-Azim Anis (R). Artist Unknown.

In this item, Arabic literary scholars might notice a surprising, but critical item: the magazine’s reprint of the chapter “ʿAbqariyyat al-ʿAqqad (‘Aqqad’s Genius),” taken from the book Fi al-Thaqafa al-Misriyya (On Egyptian Culture), written by Marxist Egyptian intellectuals ‘Abd al-‘Azim Anis and Mahmud ‘Amin al-‘Alim, and prefaced by the important Iraqi Marxist literary critic and philosopher Husayn Muruwwa  ^{1Mahmud Amin al-ʿAlim and ʿAbd al-ʿAzim Anis, Fi al-Thaqafa al-Misriyya [On Egyptian Culture] (Beirut: Dar al-Thaqafa al-Jadida, 1989).}. The book was a manifesto for a new brand of politically committed literary practice and criticism, influenced by Soviet socialist realism and Sartre’s philosophy of literary engagement—a key text for the anti-colonial, socialist and Arab nationalist literary scenes of Cairo, Beirut and Baghdad. It was rooted in the rejection of the older nahdawi (enlightenment) generation of Arab literature—epitomized by thinkers such as Taha Husayn and ʿAbbas Mahmud al-ʿAqqad—and led by a new generation of Egyptian writers who rebelled against literary classicism, maintaining that literature must emerge from the base of society  ^{2See Samah Selim, “The Politics of Reality” in The Novel and the Rural Imaginary in Egypt (RoutledgeCurzon, 2004) and Yoav Di-Capua, “Commitment” in No Exit. Arab Existentialism, Jean-Paul Sartre and Decolonization (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2018).}.

Abd-al-Azim Anis, the editor (الدكتور «عبدالعظيم أنيس»)

In itself, it would not be surprising to find this reprinted chapter in an Arab socialist literary magazine, but the fact that there was an embargo on all communications between Israel and the Arab world during this period raises the question of how this piece of work reached the Haifa-based editors the same year it was published in Beirut? The most likely answer is that Emile Habiby was able to procure Arab cultural magazines through his ties as a Communist Party, allowing for the regular reprint of articles from major Arab periodicals such as Adab or al-Tariq  ^{3See Sayf al-Din Abu Salih, Al-Haraka al-Adabiyya al-ʿArabiyya fi Israʾil [The Arabic Literary Movement in Israel] Volume II. (Haifa: The Arabic Language Academy, 2010), p. 361.}. Such publications provide proof of the ties between the Arab cultural left and Palestinian intellectuals inside Israel after 1948, even during the years of the embargo.

Mahmud Amin al-’Alim