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Hyde Park Developments Supports the Arts, Music, and the Revival of Egypt's Cultural and Artistic Heritage Two Concerts to Celebrate the Legacy of Dalida

Hyde Park Developments Supports the Arts, Music, and the Revival of Egypt's Cultural and Artistic Heritage Two Concerts to Celebrate the Legacy of Dalida

Identity28-05-2025
Cairo – May 28, 2025
Reaffirming its leading role in supporting culture, music, and the preservation of heritage, Hyde Park Developments is sponsoring two tribute concerts honoring the iconic international artist Dalida, under the title 'Bent Shoubra'. The concerts will take place on 30 and 31 May 2025 at the Mövenpick Theatre in Media Production City, reflecting the company's continued commitment to delivering refined cultural and musical experiences that enhance the lifestyle offerings within its communities. The two-night event will celebrate Dalida's illustrious career, showcasing her most beloved hits spanning over three decades of musical brilliance.
Directed by Mirva Kadi, a Lebanese-French artist known for her standout performances at major venues such as the Beiteddine Festival and Casino du Liban, the concerts will also feature a special appearance by Egyptian singer Heidi Moussa, a classically trained vocalist from a musical family who honed her talent under Maestro Selim Sahab at the Cairo Opera House.
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As anyone who has read Fanon's Algerian books will know, they consist of essays on various themes including the Algerian national struggle, colonial rule and psychiatric disorders, the formation of Algerian national identity in the post-independence period, and Algerian women and the Islamic headscarf or veil. In the last years of his life, Fanon became a kind of staff-writer on El Moudjahid, the French-language newspaper produced in Tunis by the Front de Libération nationale (FLN), the Algerian independence movement, where his role was to explain the actions of the FLN to an international audience. His books, put together in a hurry by his editors, or consisting of material for which he may not have always wished to be remembered, have at last been receiving proper editorial attention in recent years, though there is still a long way to go. A major new set of previously unpublished materials by Fanon was published in France in 2018 under the title of Ecrits sur l'aliénation et la liberté. This was used by his US biographer Adam Shatz in his well-received 2024 biography of Fanon, adding additional perspectives to the standard work by David Macey. The French translation of Shatz's book was on display at this year's Maghreb des Livres, along with a selection of other recent books in French on Fanon bearing witness to the growing interest in this important Martinican and by adoption Algerian author. Books on display: Browsing through the books on display at this year's Fair, there were several intriguing new or new-ish publications on Fanon and other members of the foundational generations that caught the eye, Shatz's new biography, for example, widely reviewed in English and now also in French translation, along with Alice Cherki's Frantz Fanon, Portrait, now available in an inexpensive paperback edition. Cherki, an Algerian psychoanalyst still practicing in Paris, worked with Fanon during his time at the Blida Psychiatric Hospital and has since published various memoirs. The respected review Algérie Littérature Action (Marsa Editions), renamed A Littérature Action since its relocation to Paris from Algiers, was presenting its latest number focused on re-readings of the work of Camus, while another review, Awal, a journal of Berber studies founded by the Algerian Berber writer Mouloud Mammeri, was presenting its latest number dedicated to Mouloud Feraoun. One of the most important of the Algerian Berber writers of the older generation, and perhaps best known for Le Fils du pauvre, a memoir of childhood in the Kabyle region of Algeria, and his journal for the years 1955 to 1962, Feraoun was assassinated by French paramilitaries in Algeria in 1962. Other books that caught the Weekly's eye included new books in French on Palestine and the war on Gaza by well-known French writers on the Middle East. Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor at the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po), was represented by Un Historien à Gaza, a first-hand account of life in Gaza under Israeli bombardment, while journalists Alain Gresh and Edwy Plenel, appearing later in the day on a panel on developments in the Middle East, had contributed books entitled Palestine, un people qui ne veut pas mourir and Palestine, notre blessure, respectively. More focused on France and French relations with the Maghreb were recent works by historian Benjamin Stora, born in Algeria but coming to France as a child, on Algerian history (L'Algérie en guerre, 1954-1962), francophone Algerian writer Kamel Daoud's latest novel Houris, which refers to events in Algeria in the civil-war decade of the 1990s (the so-called 'Black Decade') and won the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 2024, and, by a writer originally from neighbouring Tunisia, professor of literature and journalist Abdelwahab Meddeb's posthumously published Vers l'Orient, travel notes on destinations as different as Tangiers, Cairo, and Kyoto. Meddeb came to international attention for his book La Maladie de l'Islam, translated into English as Islam and its Discontents in 2004, but he was probably best known to French audiences for his weekly programme Cultures d'Islam on the radio station France Culture that attracted a large audience. Other books that the Weekly made a mental note of included French anthropologist Fabien Truong's Grands ensemble: Violence, solidarité et ressentiment dans les quartiers populaires, an investigation of one of the suburbs surrounding French cities that are home to many people of North African or African heritage and can be seen as suffering from more than their fair share of social problems, Franco-Tunisian researcher Hajer Ben Boubaker's prize-winning Barbès Blues: Une histoire populaire de l'immigration maghrébine, a look at North African communities in the Barbes area of Paris, and Elias Sanbar's essay-length La dernière guerre? Palestine, 7 octobre 2023-2 avril 2024. Sanbar co-founded the Revue d'études palestiniennes (Journal of Palestine Studies) in 1981 and was the journal's editor-in-chief for 25 years. He is the former Palestinian ambassador to the UN cultural agency UNESCO. As is often the case at Paris events of this kind, while this year's Maghreb des Livres will have given visitors a valuable overview of books appearing in French on the Maghreb countries and to a lesser extent on aspects of the wider Middle East, there was little from the region. While some provision had been made for various titles to be brought in from Algiers, with the Algiers publishers Casbah Editions and Samar Editions contributing books, as well as El Amir Editions (based in the French port city of Marseilles), it was hard to feel that what was available represented more than a small fraction of production. There was little or nothing in Arabic. Before leaving this year's Maghreb Book Fair, the Weekly attended a panel discussion featuring Alain Gresh and Edwy Plenel, as well as French academic Agnes Levallois and journalist Beatrice Ores, on the situation in Gaza and the West Bank. A second discussion on L'Algérie en resistance, d'Abdel-Kader à Fanon featuring a range of speakers including Alice Cherki had to be abandoned after a power cut caused by the heat led to the clearing of the building. Maghreb des Livres, 28-29 June, Paris. * A version of this article appears in print in the 24 July, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:

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