The Bibliotheca Alexandrina has launched a new book series titled "Humanity's Heritage for Youth and Adolescents", as part of the activities of the currently held International Book Fair at the library, which concludes on Wednesday, July 26th.

The series, supervised by Dr. Ahmed Zayed (Director of the Library), presents twenty-five diverse books aimed at "simplifying the essence of literature, science, and human knowledge for Egypt's new generations, and spreading Egypt's heritage and culture, as well as world culture, all over Egypt and the Arab world, and the world as a whole."

The number of pages in each book of this new series does not exceed fifty or sixty, printed elegantly on good paper and mostly diacritized letters, with easy language, simple style, and explanations for difficult words (if any), creating visual and intellectual reading pleasure.

Among the books introduced in this new series are: The Ancient Library of Alexandria, Hypatia - Dream and Destiny, Ancient Egyptian Literature, The Statue of Egypt's Renaissance. It also includes books about pioneers in literature, art, enlightenment, thought, and politics in Egypt and the world, such as: Al-Aqqad, Taha Hussein, Ahmed Shawki, Naguib Mahfouz, Hafez Ibrahim, Simone de Beauvoir, Socrates, Descartes, Saad Zaghloul, Al-Hasan bin Haytham, Gamal Hamdan, Hoda Shaarawi, Imam Muhammad Abduh, Talaat Harb, Abdul Rahman Badawi, Fatima Al-Yousef, Mahmoud Sami Al-Baroudi, Ahmed Arabi, and others.

If we choose to browse one or two books from this series, we might select, for example, the book "Naguib Mahfouz - Nobel Laureate: Creative Journey" by author Amal Al-Deeb, which talks about Mahfouz's beginnings, his university entry, job, writing journey, and creative career. There's an unintentional error in the pages, where the author mentioned that the second phase of Mahfouz's creative journey is called the realistic stage, then she mentioned again on the same page that the third stage is also called the realistic stage. I believe it was an unintentional mistake that should have been caught by the text processor, Safaa Al-Deeb.

The author also discusses the novels "Children of Our Alley" (1959) as a significant preparatory stage for the "Epic of the Harafish" (1977), which is truly the artistic and human maturity phase for Mahfouz, or in other words, the fruit-bearing stage. Then, Amal Al-Deeb stops at Naguib Mahfouz's relationship with the Arabic language, his Nobel status, marriage, cinema, the Nobel Prize, the assassination attempt on the author of "Children of Our Alley", the awards Mahfouz received, and his bibliography.

The book "Ahmed Shawki - Prince of Poets" by Dr. Medhat Issa talks about Ahmed Shawki's life and literature, selected examples of his poems, rebuttals, and theatrical poetry. In the beginning, he introduces Shawki with testimonials, such as a statement by Ahmed Hassan Al-Zayat (author of the message), who says: "Shawki's soul is stronger than his art, his poetry broader than his knowledge, his wisdom firmer than his character, and his ability greater than his readiness, so his reader never doubts that he is a medium for a hidden soul guiding him, and a messenger for a divine force  inspiring him."

Despite the harsh criticism that Al-Akkad directed at Shawki in his books: "The Diwan," "Poets of Egypt and Their Environments in the Previous Generation," and "Cambyses in the Balance," to the extent that a critic like Dr. Taha Wadi (in his book Shawki's Lyric and Theatrical Poetry) described Al-Akkad's criticism as unethical, what Medhat Issa proved in statements and testimonies vindicates Shawki. Al-Akkad said: "Ahmed Shawki was a scholar in his generation, a scholar for the school that transferred poetry from the stage of stagnation and mechanical imitation to the stage of behavior and innovation, combining the advantages and characteristics that were scattered in the poets of his era. There was no merit or specialty in any poet of that era, but it had a counterpart in Shawki's poetry from its beginnings to its ends."

Medhat Issa stops at Shawki's culture and asks: Where did Shawki get his culture? Then he talks about his poetic works and his pioneering of Arabic poetic theater, the characteristics of his poetry and its purposes, the moral dimension in his poetry, and the religious influences in this poetry, with special interest in language and music in Shawki's poetry, and his non-poetic works such as the book "Gold Markets" and the book "Arab Countries and Great Men of Islam" (a Rajaz), and the book "A Few Days in the Capital of Islam," which is travel literature, as well as his novels like: "The Virgin of India" and "Ladias" and "Dalu and Tayman" (which is the second part, completing the events of Ladias) and "Dialogues of Shaytan Bintaour," and "The Ace of Spades."

Issa points out that Shawki only wrote one prose play, "The Princess of Andalusia," which he wrote during his exile to Spain, and it is charged with political messages related to the English occupation of Egypt in 1882.

Then the author scatters some of Shawki's sayings about wisdom, talks about his death, and his will to have two verses from "Path of the Mantle" written on his tomb, which are: "O Ahmed of goodness, I have prestige by my name ** And how does not elevate by the Messenger my name If my sin is beyond forgiveness, I have hope ** In Allah to place me in the best protection."