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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Worthwhile, 13 Oct 2007
This book was published in 1983 and contains 24 stories by the same number of writers. Half of them are from Egypt, and the rest from 10 other Arab countries. There's nothing from the countries of the Arab peninsula. Two women are represented, Lebanon's Hanan al-Shaykh and Egypt's Alifa Rifaat. Information on the specific year of publication for most of the stories is lacking, but they appear 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 includes 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 lead him to approach a djinn and suffer the consequences. "Another Evening at the Club" by Alifa Rifaat, about a pampered wife whose maid must 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 encounters a specter from the Pharaonic age who refuses to put down the burden given him long ago by his master.
Another was "Flower Crazy" by Morocco's Mohammed Chukri, mainly a series of weakly related vignettes from a woman's day that nevertheless are filled with vivid images and pungent sensations. And "The Slave Fort" by Palestine's Ghassan Kanafani, about the narrator's trip to the seaside, where he meets an unfortunate man and ponders 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 may 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.
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