AuthorAdel Bishtawi

Adel S (Said) Bishtawi was born in Nazareth, Palestine, 1945. He read English Literature at Damascus University, attended short courses of familiarisation of languages including Latin, German and Russian, and attended a course in Linguistics at the Central London Polytechnic. Adel published more than 20 books in both English and Arabic. the last of which is Only When Desire Screams co-authored by Selvi Sado. A journalist since the late 1960s, he became Front Page Editor of Al Arab Newspaper (London), the first pan Arab Newspaper launched in Europe. In 1978, he joined Jihad Al Khazin in launching Asharq Al Awsat Newspaper (London) as Business and Supplements Editor. In 1980, he was appointed Central Managing Editor of the Emirates News Agency in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. In 1988, he joined Jamil Mrowa (who later re-launched the Daily Star in Beirut in 1996) in London for the re-launch of Al Hayat Newspaper and continued under the editorship of Jihad Al Khazin until he left in April 2001 to dedicate what is left of his time to literary and historical writing. as well as investigating origins by means of historical and etymological linguistics. Adel produced and co-produced a number of TV documentaries. He produced, directed and wrote “Muslims along the Silk Road”, a five part-60-minutes-each documentary tracing Muslim culture and heritage and the legacy of Muslim pioneers and merchants along the Silk Road starting from China.

IF I HAD A BILLION HEARTS

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A poem by Adel Bishtawi If I had a billion hearts, And you had a single one, I’d love you a billion times, And a billion more before I’m done. But I have only a single heart, That’s anxious for your dare, Just whisper you want to twine, And the loving billions you prefer. If I had a billion lips, And you had a single pair, I’ll kiss you a billion times, With the softest...

Only When Desire Screams

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A new POETRY book PRIMED WITH POWERFUL EXPRESSION The heart is the temple of love in which it crowns itself supreme. In unlike all other temples, but like all dictators, love needs no permission to enter, accepts no restrictions, conforms to no rules except its own and rejects all rivals. What it does in this temple is nothing less than one of the greatest miracles of humanity. Every dim corner...

Random Is Not Chaos

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I was absolutely shocked when I discovered in an early translation of Traces of a Tattoo that the translator has decided to spice up the plot a bit by changing the outcome of a crucial scene. “With these changes,” he wrote in an e-mail, “you can call it a a great novel. You may want to consider adding my name as co-author rather than pushing it down almost on the verge of the cropping...

TRACES OF A TATTOO: CHAPTER 10

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Shortly thereafter Aroub went into the bathroom and slammed the door shut. Her panic turning into an elaborate exercise of self-condemnation, she leaned back against the door and started pounding her thighs with her fists and biting at her lower lip with her eyes fixed on her pelvis. “Oh, my God!” she repeated frantically. “What’s happening to me?” Aroub experienced countless natural vaginal...

The Decline and Fall of the American Empire

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Published on The Nation () The Decline and Fall of the American Empire Alfred W. McCoy | December 6, 2010 This piece originally appeared at TomDispatch [1]. A soft landing for America 40 years from now?  Don’t bet on it.  The demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines.  If Washington is dreaming of 2040 or 2050 as the end of the American...

ORIGIN OF SATAN

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“Satan (Hebrew: שָּׂטָן Satan, meaning “adversary”; [1] Arabic: شيطان shaitan, meaning “astray” or “distant”, sometimes “devil”) is a figure appearing in the texts of the Abrahamic religions [2][3] who brings evil and temptation, and is known as the deceiver who leads humanity astray. Some religious groups teach that he originated as an angel who fell out of favor with God, seducing humanity into...

HOW OLD IS THE MALTESE LANGUAGE?

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(This is an etymology chat as many Maltese citizens joined us yesterday and today at the Beehive Literary Circle, not a paper I’m going to upload to Academia.edu., so relax a bit). I miss professor Wettinger, Malta’s Outstanding Authority on its Medieval History. I visited his flat several times, one with my eldest son, Sammy, met at the University and we talked at length about the origin...

IS OURS THE AGE OF PORN?

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PROTECT YOUR GIRLS. THEY ARE THE FUTURE MOTHERS OF HUMANITY AND EACH ONE MAY BE A TARGET OF THE PORNOGRAPHY INDUSTRY Guests on Google plus pages would have noticed that aside from a relatively very few cases, those eager to collect the largest number of views may have no easier choice than to engage in promoting soft or softish sex images available from hundreds of websites by the cartful. Not...

PORNOGRAPHY

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Human beings are excellent at detecting patterns. It is a primeval skill vital for survival. A man-eating lion is watched carefully. With time, the watchers become familiar with its basic behavioural habits and prepare a trap to kill it. Because human beings mastered the skill of pattern identification they taught it to computers which can do it much better and on huge scale involving super-fast...

5,000 YEARS OF MAN SUPREMACY MAY SOON END

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Both sexes have to be prepared for the coming huge social turbulance that could test humanity (1 of 5) Like seasonal migratory birds, thousands of boys and girls of many nationalities flock to the Islands of Malta in the summer to celebrate their youth. Almost empty during the months of winter, a small bay in the northern part of the Island begins to overflow with fresh life. Like arteries, the...