Alif ― Literature and Journalism

The articles in Alif 37 address the intersection of literature and journalism, in a wide variety of Arabophone, Francophone, Anglophone, and Latin American contexts, analyzing the literary in relation to an array of journalistic genres and forums, including the interview, investigative journalism, the questionnaire, the blogosphere, creative non-fiction and reportage, literary websites, cultural periodicals, the autobiographical essay, and writers' opinion articles. Complemented by the testimonies of two journalist-littérateurs and an interview with an artist-poet-art critic, the studies present fresh aspects of Arab literary modernity, littérature engagée, the politics of reception and translation in cultural journalism, canon-formation in relation to journalism, the journalistic delineation of a literary generation's profile, gender and censorship of creative writers, and revolution and civil strife.

Hala Halim is an associate professor of comparative literature and Middle Eastern studies at New York University. Her book Alexandrian Cosmopolitanism: An Archive received the American Comparative Literature Association's Harry Levin Prize Honorable Mention. Halim served as culture editor at Al-Ahram Weekly for several years.