New Waw, Saharan Oasis (CMES Modern Middle East Literatures in Translation)

Literature & Fiction

Al-Koni, Ibrahim

Genre Fiction

Ctr for Middle Eastern Studies UT-Austin

Walid Ikhlassi evokes the individual's struggle for dignity and significance in the Syrian city of Aleppo during the French mandate of the forties and fifties. His characters' seeking of personal fulfillment parallels the struggle of the nation for self-definition. The changing political and cultural landscape of Syria challenges individuals in their attempts to live lives of integrity, as Ikhlassi provides analytical insights into the civil society of Syria, the axis of his writing. From the boy Antara who personifies the Arab legend of a half-African slave warrior/hero to everyday middle-aged lovers, Ikhlassi's characters fight colonial oppression and corruption from the newly formed government. Foreign and internal forces challenge the evolution of a modern nation rooted in traditional Arab values. Its strong and determined men and women refuse to accept victimhood. The introduction by author and critic Elizabeth Warnock Fernea places the stories in their historical and literary context. An avowed experimentalist, Ikhlassi portrays the modern human situation through techniques as widely divergent as realism, surrealism, interior monologue, and stream-of-consciousness. Selections of his work have been translated into English, Russian, French, German, Dutch, Armenian, and other languages.

Whatever Happened to Antara?: And Other Stories (CMES Modern Middle East Literatures in Translation)

Ikhlassi, Walid

The distinguished Moroccan philosopher Mohammed Abed al-Jabri, in this summary of his own work, examines the status of Arab thought in the late twentieth century. Al-Jabri rejects what he calls the current polarization of Arab thought between an imported modernism that disregards Arab tradition and a fundamentalism that would reconstruct the present in the image of an idealized past. Both past and present intellectual currents are examined. Al-Jabri first questions the current philosophical positions of the liberals, the Marxists, and the fundamentalists. Then he turns to history, exploring Arab philosophy in the tenth and twelfth centuries, a time of political and ideological struggle. In the writings of Ibn Hazm and Averroës, he identifies the beginnings of Arab rationalism, a rationalism he traces through the innovative fourteenth–century work of Ibn Khaldun. Al-Jabri offers both Western readers and his own compatriots a radical new approach to Arab thought, one that finds in the past the roots of an open, critical rationalism which he sees as emerging in the Arab world today.

Arab-Islamic Philosophy: A Contemporary Critique (CMES Middle East Monograph Series)

Politics & Social Sciences

Al-Jabri, Mohammed Abed

Philosophy

Leila Abouzeid, whose novel Year of the Elephant has gone through six reprintings, has now translated her childhood memoir into English. Published in Rabat in 1993 to critical acclaim, the work brings to life the interlocking dramas of family ties and political conflict. Against a background of Morocco's struggle for independence from French colonial rule, Abouzeid charts the development of personal relationships, between generations as well as between husbands and wives. Abouzeid's father is a central figure; as a strong advocate of Moroccan nationalism, he was frequently imprisoned by the French and his family forced to flee the capital. Si Hmed was a public hero, but the young daughter's memories of her famous father and of the family's plight because of his political activities are not so idyllic. The memoir utilizes multiple voices, especially those of women, in a manner reminiscent of the narrative strategies of the oral tradition in Moroccan culture. Return to Childhood may also be classified as an autobiography, a form only now gaining respect as a valid literary genre in the Middle East. Abouzeid's own introduction and Elizabeth Fernea's foreword discuss this new development in Arabic literature.

Return to Childhood: The Memoir of a Modern Moroccan Woman (CMES Modern Middle East Literatures in Translation)

Biographies & Memoirs

Abouzeid, Leila

Arts & Literature

Passage to Dusk deals with the Lebanese civil war of the 1970s in a postmodern, poetic style. The narrative focuses on the deranged, destabilized, confused, and hyper-perceptive state of mind created by living on the scene through a lengthy war. The story is filled with details that transcend the willed narcissism of the main character, while giving clues to the culture of the time. It is excellent fiction, written in a surrealistic mode, but faithful to the characters of the people of Lebanon, their behavior during the war, and their contradictions. Issues of gender and identity are acutely portrayed against Lebanon's shifting national landscape.
The English-language reader has not been much exposed to Lebanese literature in translation, and Rashid al-Daif is one of Lebanon's leading writers. He has been translated into eight languages, including French, German, Italian, Polish, and Spanish. Translator Nirvana Tanoukhi manages to preserve Daif's unusual, moving, and at times humorous style in her English rendition.

Passage to Dusk: (Modern Middle East Literature in Translation Series )

Al-Daif, Rachid

Contemporary

They Die Strangers, a novella and thirteen short stories, is the first full-length work of the distinguished Yemeni writer Mohammad Abdul-Wali to appear in English. Abdul-Wali died tragically in an aviation accident, and his stories were collected after his death by the translators Abubaker Bagader and Deborah Akers. Abdul-Wali was born in Ethiopia of Arab Yemeni parents. His stories, filled with nostalgia and the bitterness of exile, deal with the common experiences of Yemenis like himself who are caught between cultures by the displacements of civil war or labor migration. His characters include women left behind, children raised without fathers, and men returning home after years of absence. He explores the human condition through the eyes of the oppressed and disenfranchised and is particularly sympathetic to the plight of women.

They Die Strangers (CMES Modern Middle East Literatures in Translation)

Abdul-Wali, Mohammad

Literary

Syrian poet Samir Tahhan collected folktales from old men sitting outside their houses in Aleppo, drinking tea. Afraid these stories would disappear with the passing of this generation, Tahhan also went to halls and events to hear professional storytellers and record their performances. Anthropologist Andrea Rugh helped translate the resulting two volumes of stories from the original Arabic and wrote the informative introduction to this one-volume collection. Some of the tales appeared in rhyming verse in Arabic and some were based on events that are said to have actually taken place in Aleppo. Rugh explains the concepts of the most popular types of Syrian story structures: the gissa, the hikaya, and the hudutha. With two of the poems, the Arabic and the English are shown side by side in order to demonstrate the internal poetic structures of the original rhymes. With their emphasis on morality and social values, the tales will be familiar to Western audiences. Another value for the reader is finding the accepted social values and behaviors that Arab adults try to inculcate in their younger generation, often through complex characterizations. Teasing out these meanings gives the reader an appreciation for the act of translation and hints of the power of the Arabic language in prose and poetry. Professional illustrator Douglas Rugh has provided the book's black-and-white prints based on the stories and his experiences as a child growing up in the Middle East.

Folktales from Syria (CMES Modern Middle East Literatures in Translation)

Tahhan, Samir

Robert Finn's translation of Turkish author Nazli Eray's Orphée makes available to the English-language reader a rewriting of the myth from the perspective of Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus. Eray's surrealistic version takes place in a hot resort town in contemporary Turkey. The setting of an archaeological dig gives a connection to the past and literally to the underworld. Found in the dig is a statue of the Roman emperor Hadrian, who proceeds to offer an unusual perspective on modern life and values through mysterious letters carried by a messenger pigeon. Eray also comments on modernity, as the city of Ankara emerges as a character in the novel's fantasy. Set in junta-ruled Turkey of the 1980s, the novel takes its place as a crucial slice of Turkish literary history. Resonating with haunting references to the film Last Tango in Paris, the novel evolves as a mystery story with a humorous bent. Thus Eray illuminates her insatiable curiosity about other cultures, particularly those of the West. Finally, the style of the translation is simple and clear, with crisp dialogue. Sibel Erol, professor of Turkish literature at New York University, has written an introduction that places this fantastic plot in a literary context, as well as in understandable terms that relate to the reality of today's Turkey.

Orpheus (CMES Modern Middle East Literatures in Translation)

Eray, Nazlı

Set in the late nineteenth century on a mythical island off the coast of Yemen, Radwa Ashour's Siraaj: An Arab Tale tells the poignant story of a mother and son as they are drawn inextricably into a revolt against their island's despotic sultan.
Amina, a baker in the sultan's palace, anxiously awaits her son's return from a long voyage at sea, fearful that the sea has claimed Saïd just as it did his father and grandfather. Saïd, left behind in Alexandria by his ship as the British navy begins an attack on the city, slowly begins to make his way home, witnessing British colonial oppression along the way.
Saïd's return brings Amina only a short-lived peace. The lessons he learned from the Egyptians' struggle against the British have radicalized him. When Saïd learns the island's slave population is planning a revolt against the sultan's tyrannical rule, both he and Amina are soon drawn in.
Beautifully rendered from Arabic into English by Barbara Romaine, Radwa Ashour's novella speaks of the unity that develops among varied peoples as they struggle against a common oppressor and illuminates the rich cultures of both the Arab and African inhabitants of the island. Sub-Saharan African culture is a subject addressed by few Arabic novelists, and Radwa Ashour's novella does much to fill that void.

Siraaj: An Arab Tale (CMES Modern Middle East Literatures in Translation)

Ashour, Radwa

Amidst the Iran-Iraq War, two Iraqi soldiers find themselves stationed on an isolated mountain peak with orders to observe the enemy's troop movements. As they watch the brutal destruction brought about by the intelligence they have gathered, their loyalty to their country and each other is tested. As in all wars, both Iraq and Iran demonized each other as the war raged during the 1980s. In Fortune Told in Blood, written during the mid-1990s as Iran was recovering, Davud Ghaffarzadegan labors to undo the damage caused by this process. The author, an Iranian, writes from the Iraqi perspective, thus humanizing the enemy and challenging his reader to do so as well. A deft and economical storyteller, Davud Ghaffarzadegan has received considerable critical and popular acclaim in Iran, though his work has never before been translated into English. M. R. Ghanoonparvar's exquisite translation remedies this oversight and expands the body of literature on the Iran-Iraq War available to the West.

Fortune Told in Blood (CMES Modern Middle East Literatures in Translation)

Ghaffarzadegan, Davud

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