* We open our society column for this month with happy news, which we convey to the friends and admirers of Miss Rose Ghorayeb: our great woman of letters is regaining her activity and is on the way to recovery, after keeping to her house for a time, prey to a bodily ailment... In the coming issue readers will be given a new article by Miss Ghorayeb, and Radio Lebanon will present a story of hers on Tuesday evening, May 19, at half past eight.
The Woman's Voice, which considers Miss Rose Ghorayeb a strong pillar of thought and letters in Lebanon, takes heart at our writer's return to the practice of her literary activity, and wishes her a complete and speedy recovery.
* On the night of the nineteenth of April, at the American University of Beirut, the Village Welfare Society presented the play "Zenobia," written and staged by Mr. Farid Mudawwar.
The performance was under the patronage of His Excellency the President of the Republic. A company of young women and young men took part in the acting, each performing his role excellently; and those who attended the performance testified, for the actors and actresses and for those responsible for staging the play, to the quality of the acting and the fine artistic direction.
The executive president, Mrs. Loreen Shoucair Rihani, welcomed the audience and explained that the aim of the Village Welfare Society is plain from its name: to restore life and light to the Lebanese village by way of woman — by fighting illiteracy and disease, and then by guiding
the village women and helping them to strengthen their industrial and agricultural production and to secure a market for the sale of these products.
The history of the Village Welfare Society goes back no more than two years, and it stood under the banner of the Lebanese Women's Union. As for the founding committee, to which most of the credit for mounting the play is due, it is composed of the ladies:
Evelyne Bustros: honorary president Loreen Shoucair Rihani: executive president Adelaide Richani: vice-president Anissa Najjar: secretary Aminah Khoury Makdisi: treasurer Nuzha Maasri: corresponding secretary and Mesdames Victoria Dabbas, Shams Freiha, and Aliyya al-Saidi, chairwomen of committees.
And in truth the history of the Village Welfare Society, for all its recent date, is full of sacrifices, and of great works whose difficulties none but woman
can overcome, with the endurance and long patience for which she is known. A national, social, and economic project like the village welfare project is indeed worthy of encouragement and appreciation.
* We may not be mistaken in saying that the concert given by Mrs. Rio, presenting the artist Miss Diana Takieddine, was an important musical event. This concert was an occasion of astonishment to those of our foreign guests versed in music, for Miss Takieddine played on the piano two pieces by Beethoven and Liszt, showing an uncommon genius and a mastery of expression surpassing what we are accustomed to hear at other concerts.
The attendance was great, and the number of those standing exceeded two hundred, which led those responsible to repeat the concert a week later; and it is hoped that the gifted musician Miss Diana Takieddine will travel next year to Paris to join one of the great musical companies.
* On Saturday evening, April 18, the election of the beauty queen of Lebanon for 1953 was held at the Normandy; the hall, for all its spaciousness, was packed until it could hold the spectators no longer. Only 12 young ladies took part in the contest, and after a battle of shouting and clamor the committee chose, by unanimous vote, Miss Leila Saroufim, who was given the title "Miss Lebanon" and the right to claim the many prizes set aside for her, chief among them a trip by airplane to Europe.
On the occasion of her election as Miss Lebanon, the "Harouni" fashion house engaged her, and she left with it at once for Baghdad, to show the season's fashions on the occasion of the coronation of King Faisal II.
• On Saturday, April 25, the "Beirut American" College convened a home economics conference whose proceedings lasted the
We were surprised by the announcement of the distinction won by an Arab woman artist in a world competition for artistic sculpture held in London, whose results were announced last month.
The artist is Miss Fatima al-Muhibb, an official at the Ministry of Education in Jerusalem — and in our coming issue, an illustrated report on her and on her upbringing.