Arabesques

Although I have cleverly managed to miss most of a celebration of Arab and Moroccan culture that will likely not be repeated in the nation's capital for another century, I did make it down to the Kennedy Center for a panel at which Moroccan-American author Laila Lalami read and discussed a passage from her new novel, Secret Son, due to be released officially in April. (I was ecstatic to obtain a pre-release copy, which is now at the top of my reading list.) Lalami's reading was characteristically incisive, at once exposing hypocrisy without forgoing compassion for human frailty. (A man worried about the behaviour of his daughter in America is introduced for the first time to the illegitimate son he did know he had fathered.) The consensus of the panel generally (although there were some marked differences) seemed to be that the primary concern of art was art, but the infusion of an Arab sensibility into the mainstream of American consciousness could not fail to enrich the perspective of both Americans and Arabs to the benefit of both.