In My Library: The Lost Anthem, by Thurayya Malhas

Publishers: Dar al-Kitab — printed by Dar al-Ahad

... Arabic literature, among the literatures of the world, lacks for the most part that deep mystical spirit which dwells upon the hidden folds of the soul and sings its sorrows and its joys.

And this "Anthem," which Miss Thurayya Abd al-Fattah Malhas has offered, does indeed fill a gap in the literature of the self.

In its atmosphere is a melodious poetic fragrance that reminds you of the Indian airs in the Buddhist temples; and in every poem of this anthem there is a breath of incense, and perfumes deep of reach and deep of scent, shimmering through the words and the atmospheres. These anthems are marked by heat and warmth — the heat of deep faith in the soul, an inner faith that looks out, in itself and from itself, upon God, who is all goodness and all beauty and all truth; and through this heat and this faith, God appears to you near at hand, with you — you touch Him in every tender flutter of your soul...

And beauty is a feeling of the soul in which the soul rebels against the accepted measures, to look out, through the veils of sense, upon all things — and behold, everything is beautiful, pure in its beauty...

And the mystic poetess Thurayya Abd al-Fattah Malhas, in this her first book, opens a new window in Arabic literature, a window that had been closed until today. For beyond the faith and heat and vitality and rebellion within her, she labors over the word, and brings it forth with a clarity, an elegance, and a grace rare among the rising women of letters. And she has succeeded in the sequence and harmony of her melodies, in words wholly new, wholly limpid, wholly pure, which blend with the melody in a single beautiful symphony.

As for the printing of the book, it is truly another new event in the world of printing: these anthems have come out in the clearest, deepest, and most splendid form in which books are issued anywhere in the world, on paper that eyes and hands crave.

It is as though the woman of letters wished to bring out her first fruits before the people in an atmosphere of pure beauty, precious in its purity...

And in the book are two symbolic pictures, suited to its atmosphere: "The Hand of God" and "The Secret," by the artist Rodin...