Like a number of distinguished Arab writers, the eminent Lebanese novelist, Rashid Al-Daif, participated in the West-East Divan exchange programme with a German writer, Joachim Helfer. The result of this experience was published in Rashid al-Daif's Arabic text, 'Awdat al-Almani ila Rushdih. But when the text was translated into German, and incorporated into his German interlocutor's text the whole purpose of the programme together with the politics of representation and power was thrown into new light. This engendered a wide debate in Arabic, and many articles were written, but none of them presented a thorough reading of the German text. Here Al-Kalimah offers through this critical analysis by the German critic and Scholar, Nicola Liscutin, the first reading of the full text which deals insightfully with the core issues of this debate.

This review of The Star of Algiers the recent novel by the Algerian writer Aziz Chouaki is part of the special Dossier of the contemporary novel in Algeria, which contains 22 studies and reviews published in January 2008 issue of the Arabic section of Al-Kalimah.The novel follows the quest of the young Kabyle singer, Meziane Boudjiri alias Moussa Massy for success and individual and cultural identity. It navigates its way through the complex issues of culture, music, power and identity in a manner that raises more issues than providing answers.

This review of the recent novel, The Attack, by the Algerian writer Yasmina Khadra is part of the special Dossier of the contemporary novel in Algeria, which contains 22 studies and reviews published in January 2008 issue of the Arabic section of Al-Kalimah. Khadra is no stranger to the hot conflicts, for he started his literary career with works on Algerian wars, then went to write about Kabul in his The Swallows of Kabul and Iraq in his The Sirens of Baghdad starts with the havoc that a Palestinian suicidal Attack causes. It ends with another Attack, this time by the Israeli occupying army in Jenin. In its hero's search for the truth about these attacks the novel raises issues of identity, violence, terrorism, integration, hatred and tolerance.