The magazine with three language editions was published in different countries: Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia and German Democratic Republic.
[1] Lotus contained the sections of "studies", "short stories", "poetry", "art", "book reviews" and "documents.
[14] The magazine published the text of a talk by Ghassan Kanafani on resistance literature presented at the Soviet-sponsored Afro-Asian Writers' Association conference held in Beirut in March 1967.
[4] Major contributors of Lotus included Mahmoud Darwish, Ghassan Kanafani, Samih Al Qasim,[19] Adunis, Edward El Kharrat, Mulk Raj Anand, Ousmane Sembène, Alex La Guma, Hiroshi Noma, Anatoly Sofronov, Ahmed Sékou Touré and Agostinho Neto.
"[9] Its contributors considered the 20 century as a period of the new colonialism which made use of the commodification of culture accompanied by the expansion of the global marketplace.
[18] It was also argued that the Soviet Union had higher levels of educational and economic development, gender equality and respect for artists.
[18] Lotus paid a special attention to the Vietnamese and Palestinian writing and emphasized the similarity between them in terms of revolutionary movements.