This Issue

How like a flash of blessing upon literature was the life of Salma Sayegh: it rose above the years of drought that came before it, and after them it set down, in women's literature, a new summit after “Mayy” and “Bahithat al-Badiya.”

And what splendor did Salma's feminine literature not possess! Her graceful pen suppled the Arabic letter with a pliant delicacy, and bestowed on it a touch of elegance and enchantment that only a woman can master, and before which the eloquence of man falls helpless.

What field of culture, of patriotism, of society was there in which Salma Sayegh did not have a hand and a reach? And what cause did the Lebanese woman adopt in which she did not offer the most eloquent defense?

And as a woman and a human being, she was a tender shelter for every weak one, wiping from her eyes the overflow of her heart, so that she seemed forever awash in generous tears!

It was as if pains held a blood feud against Salma. Alas for that body of hers, which was created only for ease and tenderness — fatigue and sickness never once granted it a truce... It was a race that lasted a lifetime: she in pursuit of work, and fatigue in pursuit of her... a relentless enemy, and then the spoils were taken!

In fidelity to her covenant, and as part of what we owe her, The Woman's Voice magazine devotes this issue to honoring the memory of Salma Sayegh — the woman of letters who, for a period of time, dedicated her pen and her mind, through this magazine and others, to guiding woman and taking her by the hand.