Arabic Literature

kidvisions

kidvisions

Reader
Hello everyone,
I have studied Arabic literature for three years, and the man I love is majoring in it, so I could say that I know it pretty well (No problems with the language since it's my native). I talked to a few European and American friends about great poets, writers and philosophers, but nobody knew them.
I wanted to know if anyone here is interested in Arabic literature because I was thinking about making a blog in both English and Arabic where I would write reviews and provide links to download translated and original books.
So what do you know about arabic literature and are you interested in it?
 
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lenz

Reader
Unfortunately, I have read very little Arabic literature, although I know there is much to be read. Some Naguib Mahfouz, occasional short stories or poetry, that's all really. I'm about to start reading a biography of the Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali,My Happiness Bears no Relation to Happiness(a wonderful title) by Adina Hoffman. In fact, I'd never heard of him before, but the book looks very interesting - do you know it? Do you know his poetry?
 
E

Eric

Former Member
I don't get the feeling that Arabic literature is widely read or promoted in Europe. One problem is that there is one language, Arabic, but this covers quite a lot of different countries - and versions of Arabic, from what I've read. And then there are Arab writers, living in both their own countries or as emigr?s to Europe, who write in French. Does Tunisia have a specific Tunisian literature, that is different to that of other Arab-speaking nations?

Because of the many nations and different languages of Europe, it would require quite a few blogs and introductory books to put Arabic literature on the map throughout that continent, and beyond university departments.

Another major cultural problem may be genre and style. Poetry does not translate easily, and what could be a very emotive and subtle poem in Arabic may come over as rather ordinary in a European language, if translated badly or superficially. Prose may be easier to translate so that Europeans understand the Arab world. Given geography, religion, politics, ?sthetics and other matters, there is a huge gap between the Maghreb and Europe in literary terms. If you can do something with your blog to break down barriers, and bridge the gaps, so much the better.

The only magazine I know of in the English language that promotes Arabic literature in its widest sense is Banipal, published in the UK:

Banipal (UK) - Home

Banipal (UK) - About us
 
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M. Lynx Qualey

New member
Banipal, as Eric mentions above, is a great magazine, but it's not the same as a blog and it doesn't post much content online.

I've been looking around, and have found few blogs about Arabic literature. There's what I post: Arabic Literature (in English), and Youssef Rakha's arabophile: the arabophile. The Arabist also occasionally has pieces from Ursula Lindsay about literature and literary reviews, but not that often.

Also, I think there's very, very little on Maghrebi literature in English.

I'd say it would be a welcome blog; I'd love to hear more about it.
 
saliotthomas

saliotthomas

Reader
Living in Morroco, i try to get an interest in Arabic lit, and so far my best catch was the desaparatly unknown, Driss Chraibi.
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/writers/21891-driss-chraibi.html
Best is La m?re de printemps , a true master piece.
He is kept in the shadow of Ben Jelloun, poetry and mysery, champion of " the tears of the stones" sentences . Well outside Morroco because here, it is the opposite, thank god.
I have a few from Mohamed Dib, Abdelhak Serhane and Ahmed Sefrioui but haven't read them yet.
Another excellent book is Le Village de l'Allemand de Boualem Sansal. About two Algerian brothers in the suburbe of Paris who discovers that their father is a Nazi war criminal hidden in a tiny Algerian village for years.Very interesting ideas in this one. Boualem Sansal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I woud also recomand Morceaux de choix de Mohamed Nedali ,Prix Grand Atlas 2005with LeClezio as Jury president. Mohamed Nedali - Wikip?dia
 
SlowRain

SlowRain

Reader
I'm curious about Arabic literature, but I really don't know where to begin. I'd appreciate any kind of blog that could help with this.
 
kidvisions

kidvisions

Reader
lenz said:
Unfortunately, I have read very little Arabic literature, although I know there is much to be read. Some Naguib Mahfouz, occasional short stories or poetry, that's all really. I'm about to start reading a biography of the Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali,My Happiness Bears no Relation to Happiness(a wonderful title) by Adina Hoffman. In fact, I'd never heard of him before, but the book looks very interesting - do you know it? Do you know his poetry?
Click to expand...
Well, he certainly isn't famous in the Arab World! But I will check his poems- I doubt I can find them though_ and let you know what I think :)
 
kidvisions

kidvisions

Reader
Eric said:
I don't get the feeling that Arabic literature is widely read or promoted in Europe. One problem is that there is one language, Arabic, but this covers quite a lot of different countries - and versions of Arabic, from what I've read. And then there are Arab writers, living in both their own countries or as emigr?s to Europe, who write in French. Does Tunisia have a specific Tunisian literature, that is different to that of other Arab-speaking nations?

Because of the many nations and different languages of Europe, it would require quite a few blogs and introductory books to put Arabic literature on the map throughout that continent, and beyond university departments.

Another major cultural problem may be genre and style. Poetry does not translate easily, and what could be a very emotive and subtle poem in Arabic may come over as rather ordinary in a European language, if translated badly or superficially. Prose may be easier to translate so that Europeans understand the Arab world. Given geography, religion, politics, ?sthetics and other matters, there is a huge gap between the Maghreb and Europe in literary terms. If you can do something with your blog to break down barriers, and bridge the gaps, so much the better.

The only magazine I know of in the English language that promotes Arabic literature in its widest sense is Banipal, published in the UK:

Banipal (UK) - Home

Banipal (UK) - About us
Click to expand...

Well, this is a difficult question because it really depends on what you mean by Tunisian literature.
--If you are talking about literature written with the Tunisian dialect, well most of it is until now orally transmitted (usually poems by unknown people composed more than 50 years ago). Unfortunately,these poems are dying with the older generations, the youths do not care about them,and most of those who know them are illiterate,so nobody really cared about putting them in a written form (I'm thinking about doing that though).
There is a collection of short stories written in Tunisian dialect by a very famous Tunisian Author Ali Douagi, but I don't think anybody else has actually produced a literary work in Tunisian Arabic besides him.

--Now,if you are talking about a literature written in standard Arabic but which has Tunisian features! Yes there are! I will make another topic on this to explain it better! :)
 
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Oinophilos

New member
I'm trying to read Arabic stories to develop more facility and pick up a sense of the literature at the same time. Once I get through the stories in the 1970s Michigan book, where should I go? I have a copy of Mahfouz's Black Cat Pub that I picked up in a bookstore somewhere--Cairo, I think. That would have been in 1978 (!), and I have just begun to look into it. I've read about half the stories once through. I get the gist of most of them, but to really understand I have to look up SO many words. Does anyone have a suggestion for first baby steps in real Arabic prose fiction, and where to get books in the US?
 
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sirena

Reader
Oinophilos said:
I'm trying to read Arabic stories to develop more facility and pick up a sense of the literature at the same time. Once I get through the stories in the 1970s Michigan book, where should I go? I have a copy of Mahfouz's Black Cat Pub that I picked up in a bookstore somewhere--Cairo, I think. That would have been in 1978 (!), and I have just begun to look into it. I've read about half the stories once through. I get the gist of most of them, but to really understand I have to look up SO many words. Does anyone have a suggestion for first baby steps in real Arabic prose fiction, and where to get books in the US?
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I suggest you start with Yasmina Khadra (the pen name of the Algerian writer Mohammed Moulessehoul) and his trilogy The Swallows of Kabul, The Attack, The Sirens of Baghdad. Or, perhaps Alaa al-Aswany's The Yacoubian Building. And, of course, anything from Khalil Gibran. :)
 
tiganeasca

tiganeasca

Moderator
In the course of looking for something else on the internet, I happened to discover a list of “The Best 100 Arabic Books.” I always find such compilations fascinating to some degree because, beyond the intrinsic interest of the ranking, they always say something about the compilers themselves. In this case, the list was put together by the Arab Writers Union in 2010 and is quite wide-ranging, including works from Mauritania and Tunisia to Yemen and Bahrain. The list is posted in English (with a link to the original Arabic) at https://arablit.org/2010/04/23/the-best-100-arabic-books-according-to-the-arab-writers-union-1-10/. "Arab Lit" is a blog on Arabic literature and translation by Marcia Lynx Qualey, a freelance journalist in Cairo, and has been around for a decade now; I’ve read things on it a number of times before and find it both quite even-handed and quite well-informed. In any event, she has not only translated the list, she has helpfully annotated it with both brief commentary and a note of which books she has found have been translated (not all have, despite their English titles). I find it an intriguing list and, though I am familiar with a majority of the authors, I am hardly an expert on the subject. Still, I have to agree with her that the ranking is peculiar in places, particularly the fact that Abdelrahman Munif’s Cities of Salt trilogy only comes in at 105. In any event, the list:

1 Cairo Trilogy, Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt
2 In Search Of Walid Masoud, Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, Palestine
3 Honor, Sonallah Ibrahim, Egypt
4 War In The Land Of Egypt, Yusuf a-Qa'id, Egypt
5 Men In The Sun, Ghassan Kanafani, Palestine
6 Secret Life Of Saeed The Pessoptimist, Emile Habibi, Palestine
7 The Desolate Time, Haidar Haidar, Syria
8 Rama and the Dragon, Edward al Kharrat, Egypt
9 Thus Spoke Abu Huraira, Mahmoud Messadi, Tunisia
10 Beirut Nightmares, Ghada Samman, Syria
11 The Animists, Ibrahim al-Koni, Libya
12 Tattoo, Abdul Rahman Majeed al-Rubaie, Iraq
13 The Long Way Back, Fouad Al-Takarli, Iraq
14 The Sail and the Storm, Hanna Mina (sometimes Hanna Minah), Syria
15 Zayni Barakat, Gamal al-Ghitani, Egypt
16 I Shall Present You With Another City; These Are The Borders of My Kingdom; and A Tunnel Lit by A Woman (trilogy), Ahmad Ibrahim al-Faqih, Libya
17 I Live, Leila Baalbaki, Lebanon
18 No One Sleeps in Alexandria, Ibrahim Abdel Meguid, Egypt
19 Love in Exile, Bahaa Taher, Egypt
20 The Cycles of the East, Nabil Suleiman, Syria
21 The Epidemic, Hani al-Raheb, Syria
22 The Forbidden, Yusuf Idris, Egypt
23 The Night of Ten Years, Muhammad Salih al-Jabri, Tunisia
24 Season of Migration to the North, Tayeb Salih, Sudan
25 Memory in the Flesh, Ahlam Mosteghanemi, Algeria
26 For Bread Alone, Mohamed Choukri, Morocco
27 Legislation of Al Murr, Abdul-Karim Nassif, Syria
28 House of Pleasure, Walid Ikhlassi, Syria
29 Death in Beirut, Tawfiq Yousef Awad, Lebanon
30 The Elephants, Fathi Ghanem, Egypt
31 Najran Under Zero, Yaha Yakhlaf, Palestine
32 Lovers, Rashad Abu Shawar, Palestine
33 Recognition, Ali Abu Al-Rish, Emirat
34 The Palm and El-Jabran, Gha’ib Ti’ma Firman, Iraq
35 The Return of the Absent, Munther al-Qabbani, Saudi Arabia
36 The Lamp of Umm Hashim, Yahya Hakki, Egypt
37 Return to Exile, Abu El Maati Abu El Naga, Egypt
38 The Lodging House, Khairy Shalaby, Egypt
39 Contact, Aroussia Naluti, Tunisia
40 Sultanah, Ghalib Halasa, Jordan
41 The Heron, Ibrahim Aslan, Egypt
42 Gate of the Sun, Elias Khoury, Lebanon
43 Latin Quarter, Suhail Idriss, Lebanon
44 Return of the Soul, Tawfiq al-Hakim, Egypt
45 The Hostage, Zayd Mutee Dammaj, Yemen
46 The Game of Forgetting, Mohammed Berrada, Morocco
47 Winter Wind, Mubarak Al-Rabih, Morocco
48 Return to Dar al-Basha, Hassan Nasrallah, Tunisia
49 The Windy City, Moussa Ould Ebnou, Mauritania
50 The Seven days of Man, Abdel-Hakim Qasim, Egypt
51 The Crane, Halim Barakat, Syria
52 The Story of Zahra, Hanan al-Shaykh, Lebanon
53 Wind from the South, Abdelhamid Ben Haddouka, Algeria
54 Crazy Paradise, Ahmed Youssef, Syria
55 Wasmiya Comes Out of the Sea, Laila al-Othman, Kuwait
56 Confessions of a Silencer, Mu’nis al-Razzaz, Jordan
57 Rubaiyyat Bahari, Mohamed Gibreel, Egypt
58 Sana’a: An Open City, Mohammed Abdul Wali, Yemen
59 Granada, Radwa Ashour, Egypt
60 The Call of the Curlew, Taha Hussein, Egypt’s
61 Seeds of Corruption, Sabri Moussa, Egypt
62 Al Saghamat, Yusuf al-Sibai, Egypt
63 The Emigration to the North of the Children of Hathoot, Majid Tubia, Egypt
64 After the Sunset, Mohamed Abdel-Halim Abdulla, Egypt
65 Hearts on a Wire, Abdel-Salam Ajili, Syria
66 Aisha, Al-Bashir bin Salamah, Tunisia
67 The Shadow and the Echo, Yusuf Habashi al-Ashqar, Lebanon
68 Al-Daqqala in Arajenha, Al-Bashir Khareef, Tunisia
69 The Slaver, Salah al-Din Bujah, Tunisia
70 Door to the Courtyard, Sahar Khalifeh, Palestine
71 Seventh day of Creation, Abdel Khaliq al-Rikabi, Iraq
72 A Fragment of Fear, Tharwat Abaza, Egypt
73 The Ace, Tahar Wattar, Algeria
74 The Woman and the Rose, Mohamed Zafzaf, Morocco
75 A Thousand Years of Nostalgia, Rachid Boudjedra, Algeria
76 Unknown Grave, Ahmed Ould Abdel-Qader, Mauritania
77 Murder and Anger, Muwaffaq Khidr, Iraq
78 The Whirlpool, Qamar Kilani, Syria
79 The Blockade, Fawzia Rasheed, Bahrain
80 There Is a Man in our House, Ihsan Abdul Quddus, Egypt
81 Symbols of Modernity, Abdul Amir Khadir, Iraq
82 And My Share of the Horizon, Abdel Qader Ben Shaikh, Tunisia
83 The Theocrat, Bensalem Himmich, Morocco
84 Al-Khamasseya, Ismail Fahd Ismail, Kuwait
85 Wandering Wings, Jawad Al-Sidawi, Lebanon
86 The Days of Ashes, Mohammad Ezzeddine Tazi, Morocco
87 Ras Beirut, Yasin Rifa’ieh, Syria
88 Eye of the Sun, Khalifa Hussein Mustapha, Libya
89 Longa and the Ghoul, Zahwar Wanissi, Algeria
90 Clamor of the Lake, Mohammed El-Bisatie, Egypt
91 The Sleepwalkers, Sa’ad Makkawi, Egypt
92 1952, Jamil Atiyah Ibrahim, Egypt
93 Birds of September, Emily Nasrallah, Lebanon
94 The Conspiracy, Faraj Al-Huwar, Tunisia
95 Al-Mu’allim ‘Ala or The Scholar ‘Ala, Abdul Karim Ghalib, Morocco
96 Essential Pillars, Elias Farkouh, Jordan
97 Birds of The Dawn, Lily Osseiran, Lebanon
98 Jisr Banat Yacoub, Hassan Hamid, Palestine
99 Al Wasmiya, Abdel-aziz Mishri, Saudi Arabia
100 A Man from Bashmour, Salwa Bakr, Egypt
101 The Fallen Knight Alights, Elias al-Diri, Lebanon
102 The Berries of Murr, Mohamed Al Aroussi Al Matuie, Tunisia
103 Sound, Water and Fire, Abdulla Khalifa, Bahrain
104 The Open Door, Latifa Al-Zayat, Egypt
105 The Cities of Salt, Abdul Rahman Munif, Saudi Arabia
 
Stevie B

Stevie B

Current Member
This list was a nice blend of the familiar and the new. One of my reading goals this year was to read more Middle Eastern authors, so this will be a list I'll refer back to. By the way, I have read Cities of Salt. It didn't really wow me at the time, and the book's plotline has since completely escaped me.
 
Stevie B

Stevie B

Current Member
A book/author that I’m surprised didn’t make the list is I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti. I read an article about a year ago where a number of Arab authors were asked to list some of their favorite books. Barghouti’s novel was by far the most cited one.
 
tiganeasca

tiganeasca

Moderator
Stevie B said:
A book/author that I’m surprised didn’t make the list is I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti. I read an article about a year ago where a number of Arab authors were asked to list some of their favorite books. Barghouti’s novel was by far the most cited one.
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I may be wrong, but it's my recollection that this is a memoir, not a novel....
 
Stevie B

Stevie B

Current Member
tiganeasca said:
I may be wrong, but it's my recollection that this is a memoir, not a novel....
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I just checked and you are correct. The book deals with Barghouti’s return to Ramallah after a thirty year absence (like many Palestinians who were away during the Six Day War, he was not allowed to return to his homeland).
 
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