Flights of Fantasy: Arabic Short Stories Review

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Flights of Fantasy: Arabic Short Stories ReviewThe book was published in Cairo in 1985 and contained 23 stories by 17 writers. Nine of the writers were Egyptian, the others were from Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Tunisia and Morocco. No writers from the countries of the Arab peninsula were included. Two women were represented, Syria's Ghada al-Samman and Egypt's Alifa Rifaat. The majority of the stories were from the mid-1960s and the 70s; meticulous information was provided for their year of publication and the authors' biographies.
The pieces were selected to represent a type of the Arabic short story---fantasy, psychological, social and political---that the editors thought deserved greater attention. They argued that this type of writing was stimulated by internal repression that thwarted movements toward social justice and democracy, the Arab nations' shattering defeat in the war of 1967, and cultural dislocation accompanying development.
Themes in the stories included the alienated self lost in hallucination, obsession or delusion, the conflict between public and private selves, exile, and the loss of a valid ethical system and sense of belonging. The themes were expressed using images of transformation, fragmentation and loss of identity, mutilation, and so on. Character, time and place were distorted, with liberal use of irony and parody and occasional flashes of humor.
The last story in the collection, by the Palestinian Emile Habibi, was published shortly after the end of the 1967 war and included to balance the other pieces, because the editors claimed it acknowledges despair yet reflected hope for a better future, a path that balanced optimism and pessimism, sought with patience and endurance.
In some cases, it was hard to grasp how a particular story fulfilled the claims made for it in the introduction. Of fragmented, shifting narratives and puzzling images, there were many. It was unclear whether they all illustrated repression, cultural dislocation or the loss of a sense of belonging, for example, or were more simply cases of insufficiently disciplined writing. Allusions and symbols were very possibly beyond my ability to understand and appreciate. Other readers more knowledgeable and/or interested in allusive writing might enjoy the stories more.
One piece that fulfilled the editors' claims clearly and superbly was "The Story of the Severed Head" by Mohammed Barrada of Morocco. In this cynical tale, the head of a man executed by the government flew away over the city, touching down to denounce the state and stir up the inhabitants to change their miserable conditions in the midst of plenty.
The head was arrested and imprisoned by the state for provocation, but since it was already dead, the government was unsure how to punish it. Eventually the state brought back the deceased tyrant from the pre-revolutionary regime to pass judgment, and he decreed that the head be returned to the body but its tongue be cut off. The author's postscript noted that since this punishment was a fate common to all, a sequel to the tale, to have been called the story of the severed tongue, wouldn't be forthcoming.
Another story, "Under the Bus Shelter" by Naguib Mahfouz, showed pedestrians waiting for a bus who witnessed scenes of increasingly surreal mayhem. "The Green Tree" by Zakaria Tamer of Syria showed the simple beauty of two children playing destroyed by the intrusion of executioners and their victim.
One story written around this time but not included in this collection -- "Glimpses from the Life of Maugoud Abdul Maugoud and Two Postscripts," by Yusuf Sharouni of Egypt, about the inward path taken by a narrator who was estranged from himself and happiness and who might have committed several crimes -- would also have illustrated aptly the editors' themes, had it been selected.Flights of Fantasy: Arabic Short Stories Overview

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