Fouad fichtali

It is no secret that “African-American women are the largest group of readers in the country,” states Dawn Davis, head of Simon & Schuster’s 37 Ink imprint. It is also no secret that the publishing world is very, very white, with books by black authors published at an abysmal low, never rising above 10 percent of the industry’s output. Indeed, a recent survey by Lee & Low publishers found that “just under 80 percent of publishing staff and review journal staff are white,” with “Black/African Americans [at] 3.5 percent.” But even with such conditions, key figures such as Chris Jackson, Dawn Davis and others have shepherded books by black authors through their fellow gatekeepers and to the public. Other organizations, like Cave Canem, the Kimbilio Center for African American Fiction and the African Poetry Book Fund, support black literature by offering writing retreats, workshops and small-press publishing opportunities. Here are … [Read more...] about Books by Black Authors to Look Forward to in 2016

KUWAIT CITY—In light of the country's recent decision to allow women to vote and hold public office, observers around the world have noted that Kuwait appears to have discovered the fairer sex. "The boys in Kuwait are really taking notice of how much the girls have changed over the country's long political winter," said Fouad Ajami, an expert in Arab affairs. "They're no longer shyly avoiding women they're not related to or clumsily shooting them for not wearing veils in public." Ajami added that he was not entirely surprised by Kuwait's discovery, given its long history of teasing women, calling them names, and stoning them to death for being unclean. … [Read more...] about Kuwait Starting To Notice Girls

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be mistaken, of course, if he went home this week with the impression that all along, he's been dealing with some sort of peace freak in the White House — but you could still forgive him for it. After all, that's what President Barack Obama's rivals like to say. Even though Obama has been waging war since the day he took office, his opponents have never stopped claiming that he's a weak-kneed commander in chief. And although there's never been any hint that Obama would balk at using force to defend Americans or our allies, his detractors have pounced on Iranian nukes, and Israel's potential response, as the latest way to continue calling the president — pardon the expression — a wuss. And it's well past the time that they should have cut it out. Addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in between campaign stops on Tuesday, Rick Santorum declared that Obama "has turned his back on the people of … [Read more...] about It’s Time to Stop Calling Obama a Wuss

Is it over for President Obama? Yes, says Fouad Ajami in The Wall Street Journal, arguing that the president can't salvage his presidency and he is doomed to fall into Jimmy Carter-like irrelevance. Not so fast, says David Rothkopf at our sister publication Foreign Policy. He argues that it is simply too soon to write off Obama's presidency as a failure. He notes that all of our previous presidents had their first terms in office defined by events beyond their control, and well past 18 months in office. This is just silliness, of course. First of all, at this point in the presidencies of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, they had not defined themselves, and indeed, each appeared very different from how we view them today. Of course we could have made the argument even shorter. Isn't Ajami the guy who urged the U.S. into Iraq and Afghanistan with predictions that the invasion could remake the … [Read more...] about It’s Too Soon to Write Off Obama