Halim Barakat: Six Days
Halim Barakat’s allegorical novella Sitat Ayam (Six Days, 1961) depicts the struggle of a fictional city (Dayr al-Bahr) under siege. The inhabitants of the city are confronted with an ultimatum Continue reading
White Masks
Elias Khoury’s novel al-Wujuh al-Bayda (1981), translated as White Masks, but literally White Faces, tells a story made up of many voices, all related to each other through one central Continue reading
Elias Khoury’s Gate of the Sun
Elias Khoury’s Gate of the Sun opens with the death of the midwife Um Hassan in the Shatila refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut. We are told everyone in Continue reading
The Journey of Little Gandhi
Elias Khoury’s The Journey of Little Gandhi begins with the death of the hero in the first chapter, following which the storyteller, Alice, opens each of her stories in the Continue reading
Elias Khoury’s Little Mountain
In the foreword to the translation of Little Mountain, Edward Said argues that Khoury’s novel “in equal measure…derives and departs” from the Arabic novel, breaking with Naguib Mahfouz’s realist style. Continue reading
Kingdom of Strangers
Elias Khoury’s The Kingdom of Strangers (1996, Mamlakah al-Ghuraba 1993) is a slim book which interweaves the reflections of the narrator (identified with Khoury himself), the folk legend of the Continue reading
Sonallah Ibrahim: August Star
Sonallah Ibrahim’s novel Najmah Aghustus (August Star 1974) was written over seven years, from 1966 to 1973, while the author was living in Berlin and Moscow and was banned in Continue reading
Boutros Hallaq: The Arabic Novel and the Civil Uprising
During the first year of the so-called Arab Spring Boutros Hallaq spoke at the Arabic Circle at the University of Chicago about The Arabic Novel and the Civil Uprising (which Continue reading
The Game of Forgetting
Mohammed Berrada’s The Game of Forgetting (L’ubat al-Nisyan 1987) tells the stories of various members of a Moroccan family during from the French Protectorate and since Independence, focusing on how the psychological Continue reading
Two Matar Poems
يقظة Awakening صباح هذا اليوم This morning أيقظني منبه الساعة The alarm clock woke me up و قال لي : يا ابن العرب And told me: oh son of Arabs Continue reading
Zayni Barakat
Zayni Barakat, probably Jamal al-Ghitani’s most famous novel, first published in serial form in the magazine Rose al-Yusif in 1971 and then in book form four years later in 1974, is set Continue reading
Hadith Isa Ibn Hisham
The Narrative of Isa Ibn Hisham or A Period of Time by Muhammad Muwaylihi which was first serialized and then published in book form in 1907 is often one of Continue reading
Arabism in El-Jakh’s The Visa
Hisham El-Jakh’s popularity has been skyrocketing for a while in Egypt. His style reminds me of an Egyptian Ahmad Matar – direct, more polemical than lyrical, often sarcastic and dependent Continue reading
The Crisis of History in Jabra’s Novels
In an interview in 1990, Jabra Ibrahim Jabra commented on the need for “a change of vision…a new way of looking at things” in an Arab world “betrayed by thousands Continue reading
Hunters in a Narrow Street
Hunters in a Narrow Street by Jabra Ibrahim Jabra was originally written in English, published in 1960. Unlike The Ship which has two narrators, and The Search for Walid Masoud, Continue reading
The Search for Walid Masoud
Jabra Ibrahim Jabra’s novel The Search for Walid Masoud (1978), recounts the complex legacy left behind by Walid: a Palestinian author and political activist who has been living in Baghdad Continue reading
