An astonishing "Italo-Islamic" magazine on the eve of the First World War
2021
Written by Paul-André Claudel, 2021 winner of the Jean-Édouard Goby Prize of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres
Directed by Maud Ternon, Canal Académies
Collection À tout prix
a specialist in Egyptian intellectual life at the beginning of the 20th century, shines a light on an extraordinary publishing adventure. Between 1904 and 1912, Il Convito was a unique magazine in the Egyptian media landscape of the era, which was then in full swing. The two unlikely founders, an Italian doctor and a Swedish artist, launched the magazine in the cosmopolitan city of Cairo, with the ambition of building a spiritual alliance between East and West. The journal was aimed at both European and Arabic-speaking elites, and was written in Italian and Arabic. It was anti-imperialist and resolutely engaged in the debates of the time. Paul-André Claudel provides us with a comprehensive study of this periodical: from its ideas to its reception, right up to the end of its publication. The book he has devoted to the subject was published in the Études Alexandrines collection in 2022.