is a workman bowed under his children and his household and his progeny of more than ten, asking for a way to abort his family... and a rich man of luxury who came begging for a child to delight his eye and to inherit from him after him, and whose wish is never granted. Had each of the two known the time suited to conception — which does not exceed five days — the first would have shunned conception and banished it, and the second would have drawn near to it and realized in it his wish and his desire.”

To what degree, then, has Dr. Qabbani succeeded in his work?!

Memoirs of a Schoolteacher by Rushan Badrakhan (Syria)

The memoirs of this young woman are the life story of a woman for whom the hardship of struggle was decreed; the arrow of fate struck her with a dart in the heart, and the body of society pelted her with arrows.

She bore it, in exhausting toil to earn her living, yet her proud resolve did not weaken, nor was the pride in her soul brought low.

In her description her sponta-neous, generous nature runs free, and she opens out in describing the minutest observations.

In “Memoirs of a Schoolteacher” the author goes deep into the telling of truths and the sorrows of events under the pressure of people's curiosity and human greed; we revolt with her against injustice and grow hard with her against treachery.

She stands firm despite the distances of her wanderings; from life's lessons and trials she carries wounds, and between her ribs this suffering heart bleeds, until it rebels and she takes refuge in confession.

And in this confession is a story of a love that possessed her while she was still a bud opening to life. And what was whispered to her — the ruse of an envious woman who planted doubt in her love and drove it deep — was a painful sting to her pride.

She fled she knew not where, with no helper in this adventure but resolve and will, and in her soul a serenity of childlike purity.

Yes, she has portrayed society

with the truth of its disfigured face, where noble morals and ideal humanity are lost save in a slight few, who remain a stray number among the greedy, malicious-jawed mass.

There is no denying that in “Memoirs of a Schoolteacher” there is a valuable lesson in human morals, an unflagging strength in the bearing of events, and a profit to be gained.