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About Jean Naggar
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Blog postDecember flew past in a blur of pain and sleepless nights. I did not have the heart to write a blog. I just hoped the days and nights would carry me past the dates that tear scarlet scars on my heart.
Time passed, and now I see with horror that we seem to be tumbling into an apocalyptic mess, thanks to the warring words of our president. Iran seems to be responsing with caution and deliberation, clearly more adult, but will it end there? Striding to the brink is a dangerous game -
Blog postNovember is breaking records. We crept cautiously out of October into November this year, reveling in the gift of a mild streak of several days that made us feel pleasantly autumnal, crisp days, and the sun's continued warmth day after day, light rain, skies a mixed splatter, grey with streaks of blue. Suddenly, as if the heavens had turned a crank, a deep freeze crashed into our euphoria, battering us overnight with wind, snow and frigid temperatures. My granddaughters in colleg
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Blog postThe past three days have been smoky grey, sunless, and speckled with a rain so light that it seems almost an illusion, Suddenly there are puddles in the street and a wet film everywhere. And I have been watching in wonder street trees definitively turning to gold, some of them rich with a deep coppery gold like resounding bass notes in this orchestra of beauty. Others seem sprayed with captured bits of sun, light luminous gold scattered between gleaming wet branches. Leaves that have stayed a
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Blog postI need patience. I have none. Thoughts flitter in and out of my mind like fireflies against the window panes of the country house in June. Yes, I know. FOOTPRINTS ON THE HEART is receiving a magnificent bouquet of early 5-star reviews, but now when I click anxiously onto the site, there are only the ten that were there last week. Why haven't they spawned more and more of themselves? Folks tell me they have bought the book. Some say they have read it, and having read it, they love it. They wil
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My first novel, Footprints On The Heart, has flown out of my reach, winging its way out into the world on wings of the internet to reach out and touch strangers in ways I cannot imagine. It's a little like sending a child off to school for the first time. Will others see the wonder and appeal of this brainchild of mine? Will they read past the first few words and have heated opinions about the characters and the way they behave? Will my readers want -
Blog postHow is it possible that an entire lifetime has gone by since we stepped out of the beautiful little round synagogue in Geneva Switzerland on July 15th 1962, as man and wife. We had nothing planned except to be together forever and ever.
We had known each other vaguely as children in Cairo, Egypt - but in a child's life, three and a half years between us was an unbridgeable gulf. I had been in the same class as Serge's younger brother at the GPS School, taught by the same teachers, pla -
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Blog postwww.jeannaggar.com/blogÂ
My parents, Joyce Smouha and Guido Mosseri, were married in Alexandria, Egypt, on February 21, 1937. They were both readers, and I remember that they had a cupboard in their little sitting room in the big house where I grew up, where they kept the special books they loved, and over time shared with their children. One of those books was BUSMAN'S HONEYMOON, by Dorothy Sayers.
Time passed, and the Suez crisis of 1956 saw a dramatic change in the -
Blog postThe drabness of winter trees seemed to echo the drabness in my heart. And suddenly this week, almost overnight, the city exploded into young green, lacy delicate leaves shivering in the chilly breezes, casting a hazy bloom over every street tree, everywhere showing off apple blossom, quince, redbud and cherry blossom, punctuated by the bold gold of forsythia and daffodils, the massed red and yellow tulips in tiny flower beds of brilliant color, surprising the eye and
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Blog postTwo years ago, I had an idea for a novel. It would have its roots in Egypt, but would quickly move to a community of exiles living in New York, centering on one character in particular, JAMILA, a girl from a small Nile village who became Jasmine, a celebrity model. What fun to research clothes and fashion agencies, and an entire world I knew so little about.
I gave Jamila a brother, Ali, left behind in the Nile village while his beloved sister disappeared into a life he could not even -
Blog postYears have gone by. Days weeks months have gone by. At the very end of December 2017, my world shattered. My eldest son, Alan, died in Los Angeles, in a sudden septic shock situation following what he had taken to be a gastric upset. He had been in New York for Thanksgiving, and to help organize my surprise 80th birthday celebration with his siblings. Within a few days, I plunged from a state of heady happiness, surrounded by husband, children and grandchildren, to a terrible crash into a bou
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Blog postA month ago, my son-in-law brought me some plants for our terrace, since various annoying setbacks prevented me from reveling in my usual happy spring foray at Saunderskill Farms in upstate New York, almost walking distance from our country house. He had chosen a glorious array of purple and white petunias, delicate spires of purple florets, pink fuschias that revealed silky purple interiors, and a magnificent hanging fuschia bursting with fat pink buds, that quite took my breath away. I imagine
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Blog postI am becoming fascinated with the different way that time impacts my life now that I do not have a measurable job to go to. Hours drift past, indistinguishable, tumbling and swirling in the quiet until they cede space to the next hour, and the next. Sometimes no words are spoken for many hours, so they pass me by in silence, offering no interaction with others. There is no schedule to brush against, nothing to push against nothing with which to make contact in the soft slurring of the days. Tim
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Blog postA year ago, I plunged into my novel and stopped writing my monthly blogs, wanting to channel all the energy of my creativity toward the one goal that beckoned enticingly from the shadows. Now winter has passed, an astoundingly mild winter, but one that seems reluctant to cede its place to spring. Clouds race across the sky, propelled by an unseasonal wind. Storms and hail batter the middle of the country. Here we are, in May 2016, and the chill in the air still makes the crocuses and daffodils
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Blog postWriting my memoir, Sipping From the Nile, My Exodus from Egypt was a transformational experience. I laid the past to rest. The echo of my life bounced back to me across the topography of decades, bringing resolution, self-knowledge, meaning, and substance to the present. The catalyst that started the process of writing my memoir came zooming out of left field soon after the births of my first grandchildren. I realized then, that while they held the key to the future, I held the key to their
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Blog postSpring is hiding, but I am in no mood for a game of hide-and-seek. I need the real thing after the winter we have had this year. I am rigorously proceeding with all the spring requirements: spring cleaning, sorting and tidying, Passover etc., but the touch of spring sunshine on my face is missing. I dare not put my plants out on our small terrace, although they suddenly feel claustrophobic in the living room. The inhospitable cold wind still breathes an ominous chill into every day. The sight o
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Blog postI have never looked forward to March as fervently as I do this year. We have family birthdays cropping up early in the month. My mother's birthday was on March 13th. She would have been 101. In celebration of her life and in thanks for the life she gave me, I have posted another of her paintings on this month's blog. A wide variety of her paintings can be found on this website, http://grannyart.free.fr/grannyart/ April will bring two BatMitzvahs of close family, as well as the yearly ordea
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Blog postSnow, ice, wind, storms, sleet and bone-chilling cold. That has been the recipe so far for this bitter winter. Even the stoics are shaken. For hibernating creatures such as myself, the days stretch, unwinding opportunity as I sit and contemplate the blank screen of my computer. Groundhog Day came and went with no clarification as to how long this weather will hold us prisoner. The three warring groundhogs of the Northeast could not arrive at a consensus, so - weary sigh - we either have an earl
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Blog postStrange December weather. Two azalea plants are flourishing on our city living-room window-sill, encouraged to spectacular bloom by the subtle wafting of warm air from the radiator nearby and the delicate winter sunlight sifting through the glass of the window pane. They bloom year after year, sometimes twice a year. Every new array of strong little buds comes as a charming surprise as the years go by. Spring-like days offer gentle air and blue skies, but hidden in our cautious, almost disbeli
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Blog postCOMING OF AGE Years have slipped by so fast Since last I sat on a slatted bench Under trees mangy as river rats, The fat river sluggish ahead Wrinkling under the blue Manhattan sky In spring. Now and then I hear birds sing, I hear them through the scream Of sirens gambling with death. Childrens' voices vanish past the playground's Bent iron grid, Into the rancid breath of city living, Swooshing down silver slides, Bundled against the treacherous temper Of early March. The past pecks at my
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Blog postThis mid-month blog is to alert readers to a new book, just published, and available in print and on Kindle. If you read my memoir, SIPPING FROM THE NILE, you may remember reading about my grandfather, Joseph Smouha, and his transformation of a swampy mosquito-infested area of the city of Alexandria into a visionary real estate development: Smouha City. THE SMOUHA CITY VENTURE explores various aspects involved in the creation, development and urbanization of Smouha City, a suburb of Alexandr
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Blog postThe months of early Fall whirl into focus amidst the beauty and turbulence of a rising wind dancing the leaves, and the pressures and pleasures of the High Holidays. These months also bring echoes of my losses. My two beloved maternal grandparents died during the High Holidays many years ago. My father died on the second night of Rosh Hashana in 1971, my mother last October. It is difficult not to view this time of year without a creeping apprehension that goes beyond a fear of the ice and cold
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Blog postI am quite amazed to note where these past months have led me. Slowly but surely I have become aware that a life-change is taking place. There has been a flip of the switch and the lens through which I view my world has shifted undeniably into a new perspective, a need for completion, a new close-up, a new set of urgencies: the final playing out of the story that is my life. Priorities have shifted suddenly and seismically. I am caught up in an urgent need to simplify and clarify, to pare down
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Blog postThe heavy rains of early summer have resulted in a thick blanket of creepers and vines draping every tree and bush with tropical intensity along the way between the city and our stone house upstate. I wonder if the obliterated trees will survive the onslaught. I look out of the windows of the old stone house and I can almost feel the thickness of dense vegetation closing in, although early landscapers created views of wide swathes of fields bordered sparely by dark conifers and a variety of de
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Blog postAn array of dormant orchid plants droops glumly on my living-room window sill, exquisite blooms long gone, stems cut to the nub, broad leaves listing to one side or another. I don't expect much of them, and they don't expect much from me, but because the leaves are still a glossy green I find it impossible to walk them down the hallway outside my apartment and consign them to their doom. So they sit patiently for months and years on my North-facing window-sill absorbing whatever sunlight filte
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Blog postSome months ago, I was engaged in clearing out my mother's apartment. Sitting gloomily in a semi-empty apartment on the best chair I could find, my back to the bookcases, where the sight of the empty shelves was like a knife to the soul, I had a thick pile of papers on my lap and a large garbage bag open at my feet. I had been working for a few hours and was feeling exhausted. My brother and sister-in-law came by, and began sifting through some piles of their own. I rubbed my temples to clear
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