Afifa Karam: A Literary Trailblazer at Rest in St. Joseph Cemetery
BY KATE RHEA
When touring cemeteries, visitors often ask to see the final resting places of famous people; the graves of actors, civic leaders, philanthropists, musicians, and professional athletes alike draw people from all over hoping to pay tribute to their lost heroes. But what of those whose fame is less flashy, dimmed by the passage of time; those “ahead of their time,” individuals who worked tirelessly during their life to change the world, only to be misunderstood or underappreciated while still living? They too deserve such pilgrimages.
Interred in a beautiful, albeit misnamed family tomb in the north section of St. Joseph Cemetery in the Diocese of Shreveport lies a literary trailblazer; a Lebanese immigrant who upon arrival in the United States at the turn of the century began an inimitable journey that would inspire scores of authors, journalists, and novelists for decades to come. Her name was Afifa Karam.
Afifa learned to read and write as a young girl born and raised in the beautiful coastal town of Amchit, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea in Lebanon. Amchit, rich in historical and archeological sites, was home to scholars and philosophers renowned in the Levant region for their contributions to society.
Afifa’s journey to the United States began when her cousin John Karam, who was already a successful entrepreneur in Shreveport, decided to go home to Amchit to find a wife. Afifa, just fourteen at the time, acquiesced (whether for love, obedience, or opportunity), and the two made a fitting pair. They married and John Karam returned to Shreveport with his new wife.
Acclimating to her new life and privileged status proved productive for Afifa. She spent her days educating herself, particularly on American history and culture. Living within what The Shreveport Journal described as, “the local Syrian colony,” Afifa had access to Arabic publications by Lebanese and Syrian writers, most of whom resided in New York City.
In the early 20th century, Al-Hoda [“the guidance” in Arabic] was a popular Arabic-language newspaper published by the celebrated intellectual Naoum Mokarzel. Mercurial and controversial, Mokarzel met a young Afifa Karam during a trip to Shreveport. With much in common, both stalwart, principled, and Marionites from Lebanon, the two began corresponding. They shared writings and became allies in opposition to gender discrimination against women in education; a lifelong passion for them both.
Afifa travelled to New York City often. During these visits, Naoum Maokarzel and his younger brother Salloum introduced Afifa to other Lebanese intellectuals which no doubt fueled her commitment to writing. Karam was first published in Mokarzel’s Al-Hoda at the age of seventeen. Mokarzel soon assigned her a weekly column. She gained popularity and relative infamy within the Arabic-speaking community, often being harassed and even shamed for her bold views and progressive ideas. She then made history in 1912 at the age of twenty-nine by acquiring and managing the monthly Arabic magazine Majallat al-Alam al-Jadid al-Nisaiyah (The New World, a Ladies Monthly Arabic Magazine.)
In the following years, Karam’s career soared, she created another monthly publication, Al-Maraa al-Souriya (The Syrian Woman), translated books from English and French into Arabic, and became the first Arab woman novelist in history when she published her first book, Badī’a wa Fu’ād in 1906.
Throughout her career, Karam remained a staunch advocate of education, especially for women, once stating, “The worst kind of women are the ignorant ones who are the disease of civilization and the curse of modernization.” Living up to her reputation, she was relentlessly forthright about what she considered the disgrace of illiteracy.
Her articles, books, and translations aimed to expose Arab women in her community to progressive ideas, stressing the importance of knowledge, reason, education, and intellect. From her position as a wealthy and prominent woman, she continuously emphasized that money and status was useless to a woman who did not educate herself and that literacy was the key to self-improvement and freedom from societal confines. Karam also wrote about the positive impact of women working together, no matter their socio-economic or cultural background, no doubt inspired by her experiences immigrating from Amchit to Shreveport.
During her decades of work, Afifa’s husband John Karam [nearly always credited in newspapers as “K. John” – the same misnomer that graces the front of their family tomb today] steadfastly supported her. Having no children of their own, John and Afifa raised their careers [John, a business owner and often-times accused “bootlegger,” Afifa a successful publisher and influential intellectual] and committed themselves to supporting the betterment of their fellow Lebanese-Americans.
A few years before her death in 1924 at the age of forty-one, Afifa’s dear friend and colleague Naoum Mokarzel called upon her to take over management of Al-Hoda, the same newspaper wherein her first article was published years before. Al-Hoda would go on to become the longest-running Arabic-language publication in the United States, still being published fifty years after Karam’s death. A short announcement about the impressive promotion was printed on page seven of The Shreveport Journal on January 30th, 1919. Her obituary was printed in local papers in late July of 1924; it praised her career and mentioned her widespread charitable giving, but also featured several mistakes including her name.
As the years passed and major colleges and universities around the world began to feature courses on feminist literature, Christian intellectuals, and Arab-American writers, Afifa Karam’s legacy began to be truly realized. Surely she would be proud to know that her influence is increasingly recognized, studied, and honored through the research by women who are walking the trail she blazed over one hundred years ago.
