Cordova, a photo by Danny Bishtawi Featured image is at Sevilla Flight of the Blackbird Robert W. Lebling Jr. Illustrated by Norman MacDonald If you eat asparagus, or if you start your meal with soup and end with dessert, or if you use toothpaste, or if you wear your hair in bangs, you owe a lot to one of the greatest musicians in history. He was known as Ziryab, a colloquial Arabic term...
A Search for Traces of Spain’s Islamic Past Tor Eigeland* I set out on my trip to photograph the traces of Spain’s Moorish past by driving south, down the coast from my home near Barcelona. Valencia In Valencia and its satellite towns of Manises and Paterna I saw some interesting ruins, though in my opinion they are among the ugliest towns in Spain.One attractive aspect of Manises...
Palace at Sevilla. Photo by Danny Bishtawi Names and place names in Spain I was pleasantly surprised a few years ago when I found myself able to trace the route taken by the famous 12-13th century Andalusian traveler Ibn Jubair (1144-1217) – (apparently mount Etna was as active in his times as now) on his return to his native country from a three-year extensive trip to the Arab east just by...
The Palace at Sevilla. Photo by Danny Bishtawi And so it is said… “As to their vanishing from the face of Earth, they have shared the fate of many nations, cultures and languages. It seems useless to speculate if they deserved a destiny different from that of Zoroastrians, Sumerian, Parthian, Mayan, Charrias or Abipones, all of which had their own aims and reasons to survive...
SUSAN BARBARA BISHTAWI Painter (Maiden name Susan Galea Borg) Jewellery Designer Book Cover Designer Susan at Medina, Malta; Susan with close friends. Highlights from an interview with Susan Bishtawi by Hussam-ul-Deen Mohamed, author, Managing Editor of Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper, London, England, and one of the outstanding literary critics in the Arab World ■ (Q) You are British, your father is...
The Fisherman and the Syren, a painting by Lord Frederic Leighton. More info can be found at Wikipedia: Leighton-The Fisherman and the Syren.
The painting is used as profile for the Creativity Initiative Facebook Page Beehive Literary Cirlce.
A short story by adel bishtawi A shadowy veil descended slowly over the last warm rays of the sun as it dipped behind the trees to the south west. They sat on the cold marble stairs of the new college building, watching silently the irreversible conclusion of another day.The traffic had thinned to a fine trickle following rush hour, and the owner of the newspaper stall was hurriedly loading his...
Details from a painting by the distinguished Iraqi painter Mazhar Hani. It is a gift from a great friend to Adel Bishtawi who knew each other for close to two decades. The painting is use for the cover of the English edition of the novel Traces of a Tattoo.
𝗔𝗗𝗘𝗟 𝗕𝗜𝗦𝗛𝗧𝗔𝗪𝗜 𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗩𝗜𝗘𝗪𝗦: María Elvira Sagarzazu – Argentinian investigative historian, researcher, novelist and essayist ✺ The Spanish Expulsion of the Moriscos and its Historical Impact I met María Elvira Sagarzazu for the first time during the 10th International Symposium on The Moriscos and the Mediterranean in the 16th and 17th Centuries which was organised by my good friend and Morisco...