Arabic Short Stories (Literature of the Middle East) Review

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Arabic Short Stories (Literature of the Middle East) ReviewThis book was published in 1983 and contained 24 stories by the same number of writers. Half of them were from Egypt, and the rest from 10 other Arab countries. There was nothing from the countries of the Arab peninsula. Two women were represented, Lebanon's Hanan al-Shaykh and Egypt's Alifa Rifaat. Information on the specific year of publication for most of the stories was lacking, but they appeared to date mostly from the 1970s.
From 1994, editions of the book contain an enlightening introduction to the development of the modern short story in the Arab world, written by the scholar Roger Allen. Roughly speaking, he describes the decades up to the 1940s as a period of the genre's emergence in connection with journalism, often reflecting a romantic sensibility, and development along the lines of French and Russian models.
The 1940s and 50s are described as a move away from romanticism toward a naturalistic form of realism, in which the short story was used frequently as a means of social criticism, with some degree of optimism prevailing. Writing in the 1960s reflected an increasing sense of alienation, stemming from the failure of political systems, heightened repression and the consequences of defeat in the 1967 war. Many writers shifted to more allusive, surreal and symbolic narratives to reflect their sense of a fragmented, illogical reality, with the trend continuing into the 1970s. At the same time, the later decades saw the increasing prominence of female writers. Allen's introduction also included a bibliography of other anthologies and translations of individual authors.
Stories enjoyed included "Small Sun," by Syria's Zakaria Tamer, a parable-like tale of a man whose greed and hopes led him to approach a djinn and suffer the consequences. "Another Evening at the Club," by Alifa Rifaat, about a pampered wife whose maid had to endure the effects of anxiety about her marriage. "The Persian Carpet," by Lebanon's Hanan al-Shaykh, about a sensitive girl's meeting with her divorced mother and an unhappy memory caused by the sight of a carpet. And "The Chair Carrier," by Yusuf Idris, in which a modern-day resident of Cairo encountered a specter from the Pharaonic age who refused to put down the burden given him long ago by his master.
"Flower Crazy," by Morocco's Mohammed Chukri, was mainly a series of weakly related vignettes from a woman's day that nevertheless were filled with vivid images and pungent sensations. "The Slave Fort," by Palestine's Ghassan Kanafani, described a narrator's trip to the seaside, where he met an unfortunate man and pondered the years of a man's life. Another piece, "Glimpses from the Life of Maugoud Abdul Maugoud and Two Postscripts," by Yusuf Sharouni, though hardly enjoyable, was interesting for its relentless plotting of the inward path taken by a narrator estranged from himself and happiness, with conflicting feelings of guilt and innocence, who might have committed several crimes.
Many of the other stories either were far too allusive, surreal or symbolic for me to understand or were relatively straightforward but just didn't capture my imagination. If this had been otherwise, I would've rated the book more highly.
Twelve of the stories in this collection have been included in the much larger Anchor Book of Modern Arabic Fiction, published in 2006 by the same translator, Denys Johnson-Davies. Having worked as a translator of Arabic fiction for 60 years, he's among those in the field who themselves should receive an unlimited number of stars.Arabic Short Stories (Literature of the Middle East) OverviewAn alleyway of Tangier as seen through the eyes of a prostitute, the price paid by a sophisticated Cairene philanderer for his infatuation with a young bedouin girl, the callous treatment a young wife receives from the man to whom she has been married. These are some of the themes of the twenty-four stories in this volume, each by a different author and rendered into English by one of the finest translators of Arabic fiction. Among the authors represented are Edward El-Kharrat, Bahaa Taher, Alifa Rifaat, and Ghassan Kanafani. Through the eyes of insiders, these stories show us the intimate texture of life throughout the diverse countries and cultures of the Arabic world.

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