Must-Read Books: Top 10 Modern Arabic Literature in Translation

Selected &Presented by: Serin Hetou

The view of the orient: desert, exoticism, illiteracy, nomad, and A

Thousand and One Nights

Contemporary Vista of the Arab world

• 22 countries, a combined population of over 338.4 million, in 2009. (www.encyclopedia.com)

• Diverse belief systems: Christianity, Islam, Judaism.

• Diverse ethnicity: Arab, Africans, Armenian, Assyrian, Kurd, Turkmen.

The New Library of Alexandria, Egypt. • Baghdad National Library (photo taken in

2003)Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Opera House, Damascus, Syria

Inherited Arabic Literature:

• Rich poetic language• A passion for the word• Rhetorical style: famous essayists, Mustafa Lutfi

Al-Manfaluti and Abbas Al Akkad.• Poetry is the earliest form• Classical form of poetry: meter, rhyme, and

variations of syllabic lines. • The novel is a relatively new phenomena, started

out in the early 20th century.

Top 10 Modern Arabic Literature in Translation

• The following list comprised some of the Modern Arabic writers who basically made it to the western world. Their works are not only translated, but the translations appear to be sound.

• The objective of this list to illustrate the diverse backgrounds of authors as well their subject matter: men & women, Christian & Muslim faiths, conservative & secular political views.

The poetry of Arab Women: a Contemporary Anthology. Ed., Nathalie Handal. 2000.

Nazik Al-Malaika

• Born in 1922, in Baghdad, Iraq. Died in 2007 in Cairo, Egypt.

• A pioneer in writing in free verse poetry which was a relatively new phenomena

• Started out with experimentation away from the classical structure…

• Influence from western tendencies • The pioneer effort dates back to

the 40s & 50s, • Her poetry is characterized by its

terseness of language, eloquence, original use of imagery, and delicate ear for music.

Naomi Shihab Nye• Born in 1952, St. Louise,

Missouri. • Currently, lives in San

Antonio, TX. • Received many awards,

Guggenheim fellow. • Her poems touched on the

subjects of land, home, the experience of an Arab-American.

Hanna Mina. Fragments of Memory: A Story of a Syrian Family . Tran. Olive Kenny and Lorne Kenny, 2004.

• Hanna Minna, born in 1924, Latakia, Syria.

• His narrative style is similar to that of Emile Zola and other naturalist writers like John Steinbeck & Frank Norris. He captures the realistic depiction of human life, misery, & struggle.

• Usually the setting of his novels are sea-inspired.

Edwar Al-Kharrat. Stones of Bobello. Tran. Paul Starkey, 2005.

• Edwar Al-Kharrat, born in 1929, Alexandria, Egypt.

• A prolofic writer, critic, & translator.• His novel Stones of Bobello has been

translated into French, Italian, Catalan, German, Polish and English.

• Won several international & local awards.

• Many scholars saw in this novel as an autobiography of Al-Kharrat’s life and childhood. It narrates the life & struggle of a young coptic/Christian child in Egypt in the 1940s and the mixture of socio-economical polarities around him: male, female, copt, muslims, rich, poor, city, & village.

Edward Said. Orientalism

• Edward Said (1935-2003) in Jerusalem.

• American-Palestinian writer, critic, & theorist.

• A late Columbia professor.

• The idea of the orient stems from, as Said’s argue, the western projection of what the middle east is.

Naguib Mahfouz. Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, & Sugar Street.

Trans. William Maynard Hutchins, et. El.

• Naguib Mahfouz (1882-1976), Cairo, Egypt.

• Won the Nobel Prize of Literature in 1988.

• Tells the tale of three generations of family saga in the socio-political setting of Cairo from 1917-1944.

• Published in 1957, English translation in 1992.

Taha Hussein. The Days. Trans. E.H. Paxton, 2001.

• Taha Hussein (1889-1973).• Was born blind. • The most influential Egyptian

novelist , intellectual, and forerunner of the modernist movement in Egypt.

• He earned his Ph.D. from the Sorbonne University in Paris, France.

• His writing is so sensuous and lively that a reader could hear, taste, & visualise the image he is conveying.

Ulfat Idilbi. Sabriya: Damascus Bitter Sweet. Trans. Peter Clark, 1997.

• Ulfat Idilbi (1912-2007). • A Syrian novelist, lecturer,

& feminist.• Her book is set in the 1920s

in French occupied Damascus. Quote: "My countrymen demand freedom," Sabriya, the central character says, "but cannot even give it to one another. Half the nation remains bound by chains imposed by you men."

Malika Oufkir. Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail. Co author Michelle Fitoussi, 2001.

• Malika Oufkir was born in 1953, in Marrakech, Morocco.

• Oprah’s Book Club• Tells her own story of a General’s

daughter. She was a frequent visitor and later on a resident at the King’s court and Palace. However, in the aftermath of an attempt to assassinate the king, her father, the minister of defense at the time, was accused and sentenced to death. His wife and children (Malika is one of them) lived a life of confinement, torture, and terror in a remote desert jail in Morocco.

• Wrote a sequel, titled, Freedom: The Story of My Second Life, 2007.

Mahmoud Darwish. The Butterfly’s Burden. Trans. Fady Joudah, 2007.

1941-2008Land, Woman, and ExileIn Damascus: the traveler sings to himself: I return from Syria

neither alive nor dead

but as clouds that ease the butterfly’s burden

from my fugitive soul (117)

Ali Ahmed Said, known by the pseudonym Adonis. Born in 1930, Latakia, Syria. I had the pleasure of meeting him in Oct.

2007, Paris, France.

Adonis. The Pages of Day & Night. Trans. Samuel Hazo, 2000.

• His poems stand restless; not being satisfied on a ground of defiance –a political-social commentary –. He elevates the texts to a higher status of aesthetic expression in his playfulness of words, imageries, and the inner musicality of his lines. The realm of imageries that he conceives in his poetry shapes his individuality as a poet that is unexampled of in any other current Arab author. Two lines intertwine in his writing, namely: his observation of the human condition: chaos, war, love, and exile along with his enchantment of words and language.