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Critical Survey of Long Fiction, 4th Ed. The Middle Eastern Novel The novel did not begin to take root in the Middle East until after World War I and did not develop into a serious genre until after World War II. Although Arabic, Kurdish, Persian, and Turkish literatures have a long and rich assortment of oral narrative forms, it seems that none of them has become a major narrative type in the way of the European novel. Lacking a native tradition of their own, Middle Eastern novelists thus turned to Western models for inspiration and guidance. Prior to the outbreak of World War I, there was some contact between the West and the Middle East. Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798; following the French withdrawal, the country's ruler, Muhammad Ali, began to send missions to Italy and France to study military tactics and new weaponry. In 1882, the British occupied Egypt. However, nonmilitary contact with the West, including the sharing of literature, did not occur to any significant degree until after the region came under French and British domination following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1923. Many Western editors argue that the literatures of the Middle East are always about politics. This is indeed often the case. However, this should not be surprising. The Middle East has been a volatile region politically. The widely publicized Arab-Israeli conflict is only one of several conflicts in the Middle East. In addition, regional secularism and freedom of expression have faced ongoing challenges from orthodox Islam and undemocratic systems of government. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to imagine literature not entering political life. The Egyptian Novel Egypt has long been the region's undisputed cultural capital. In 1927, Muhammad al-Muwaylihi's novel Fatra min al-zaman (1907; a period of time), better known as Hadith 'Isa ibn Hisham (the story of 'Isa ibn Hisham), was adopted as a school text. Two years later, Muhammad Husayn Haykal's novel Zaynab, completed in 1911 and published in 1913, went into its second printing. These two literary events generated so much interest in the novel that in 1930 a competition in novel writing was announced. The winner was Ibrahim al-Mazini's 1931 novel Ibrahim al-katib (Ibrahim the Writer, 1976). Muwaylihi's novel proved quite popular, largely because of the way it juxtaposed two very different ways of life--one Egyptian, the other European. Many Egyptians found it fascinating to read about the inventions and technological marvels displayed at the Great Paris Exhibition of 1899. The novel led to a new literary theme--the European visit--and it became the focus of many novels published during the 1940's and 1950's. This period included serious and prolonged debate about the advantages and disadvantages of contact with Europeans. Even those novels without a European theme display the influence of the West. In Haykal's novel, for example, Zaynab is prevented by tradition from marrying the man she loves. In Mazini's novel, Shushu's marriage cannot take place until after her older sister is married. Exposure to European ways turns both protagonists against tradition, which they see as confining and outdated. Forces of change--government bureaucracy, the justice system, and secularism--also lead to conflict in Yawmiyat na'ib fi al-aryaf (1937; Maze of Justice, 1947), by Tawfiq al-Hakim (1898-1987). These novelists played an important role in the development of the novel in the Middle East. However, the writer who contributed the most to the genre and who has been the most influential is Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006). Born in Cairo and educated at King Fuad I (now Cairo) University, Mahfouz worked as a civil servant for a number of years; he did all his writing at night. His first novel, 'Abath al-Aqdar (Khufu's Wisdom, 2003), appeared in 1939, but it was his later novels that won him international recognition and the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature. These novels include Zuqaq al-Midaqq (1947; Midaq Alley, 1966, revised 1975), Bayn al-qasrayn (1956; Palace Walk, 1990), Qasr al-shawq (1957; Palace of Desire, 1991), and Al-Sukkariya (1957; Sugar Street, 1992). These last three titles are known collectively as Al-Thulathiya, or The Trilogy. The Trilogy, some fifteen hundred pages long, is in the great novelistic traditions of Leo Tolstoy, John Galsworthy, Anthony Trollope, and Victor Hugo. In tracing the life, beliefs, tragedies, and difficulties of al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad and his family in the years leading up to World War II, this massive work serves as a vast historical study of a society in transition. The first volume centers on the father, Ahmad, who follows tradition and rules the family with an iron fist. No one dares to oppose him. In volume two, his son, now attending college and sick of tradition, begins to challenge his father. In volume three, the father, now weak and old, has relinquished most of his authority to his son. It is a changed world: Boys and girls attend school together, people talk about communism and the impossibility of belief in God, the young rebel against tradition and openly embrace European ways, fathers are the subject of ridicule and hate, and the old constantly complain about change but are powerless to stop it. Although Mahfouz never joined any political party, he said that politics were "the very axes" of his thinking. He once credited George Bernard Shaw and Karl Marx for his development into a socialist and a believer in science. He strongly supported the 1952 revolution that brought Gamal Abdel Nasser to power in Egypt, hoping that Nasser would create a "true socialism and true democracy." When that did not happen, and Nasser grew increasingly autocratic, Mahfouz responded with a series of critical novels: Hikayat Haratina (1975; The Fountain and the Tomb, 1988), Al-Liss wa-al-kilab (1961; The Thief and the Dogs, 1984), Al-Shahhadh (1965; The Beggar, 1986), and Al-Karnak (1974; Karnak, 1979; Karnak Café, 2007). Of these novels, The Beggar is the bleakest. It is the story of Omar, a former poet, revolutionary, and socialist who is now a wealthy, middle-age lawyer. He is married and has two daughters, but he has lost all interest in living. He has become alienated from everyone around him, but what appalls him the most is the government's intolerance of any form of dissent and the terrible economic mess it has created in the name of socialism. All this proves too much for Omar. He tries one diversion after another--travel, drink, sex--but to no avail. As the novel comes to a close, he goes mad. Mahfouz also criticized his country's Muslim fundamentalists after they assassinated President Anwar Sadat in 1981 for making peace with Israel. Mahfouz responded with the novella Yawm Qutila al-Za 'im (1985; The Day the Leader Was Killed, 1989), which underlines his belief that society, to overcome violence, intolerance, and poverty, must grow out of its need for religion. When Muslim fundamentalists assassinated author Farag Foda in 1992, Mahfouz accused the group of "intellectual terrorism." In 1994, Mahfouz himself became the target: A young militant Muslim stabbed the author in the neck while he was waiting for a ride; Mahfouz was hospitalized for two weeks. Mahfouz was well versed in Western philosophy and literature and was greatly influenced by such important authors as William Shakespeare, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Eugene O'Neill, Henrik Ibsen, and Shaw. Some Arab nationalists accused Mahfouz of going too far in embracing Western ideas and traditions. The Question of Palestine Many Arab and Israeli novelists came into prominence after the creation of Israel as a nation in 1948. Arab novelists have focused mostly on the plight of the Palestinians and the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict. Ghassan Kanafani (1936-1972), who was assassinated in Beirut, Lebanon, at the age of thirty-six, gained a wide readership after the publication of Rijal fil al-shams (1963; Men in the Sun, and Other Palestinian Stories, 1978) and Ma tabaqqa lakum (1966; All That's Left to You, 1990). Both focus on the horrendous difficulties that Palestinians face as they try to find a home. In the first book, three young men brave the scorching heat of the Jordanian desert trying to make it to the Kuwaiti border on foot, where a truck driver agrees to smuggle them into the country for an exorbitant fee. After a long delay, the driver manages to make the crossing with his hidden human cargo undetected. By the time he crosses the border, however, the men have all suffocated to death inside the water tank. The driver throws the bodies into a garbage dump. Out of this tragic event, Kanafani creates a tale that carries with it, from beginning to end, the pain of national dispossession and its consequences for ordinary people. As another novel of dispossession, All That's Left to You is the moving story of Hamid and Maryam, a brother and sister who are separated from each other and their mother. Hamid, on his way to Jordan in search of his mother, must cross the desert at night so that he will not be detected by the border guards. His sister, impregnated by Zakariyya, who is already married and the father of five children, has no choice but to marry the man, a Palestinian paid by Israel to spy on his fellow Palestinians. The end is bloody: Maryam stabs her husband to death in self-defense, and Hamid kills an Israeli border guard. Both end up in prison for life. Kanafani published nineteen books in his short career, including the novella 'A'id ilá Hayfa (1970; Returning to Haifa, 2000). Like Kanafani, Syrian writer Halim Barakat (born 1933) deals exclusively with the question of Palestine. Sittat Ayyam (1961; Six Days, 1990) is an eerie anticipation of the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War of 1967, while 'Awdat al-ta'ir ila al-bahr (1969; Days of Dust, 1974) is a response to the same conflict. In Days of Dust, Ramzi Safadi is a Western-educated professor at the American University in Beirut. As a displaced Palestinian, he cannot call Lebanon home. His dream is to one day return to Palestine; he and his students are led to believe by the national media that this might actually happen. However, the war turns out to be a crushing defeat for the Arabs. With their illusions shattered, Ramzi and his students find themselves in a state of shock and disbelief. For Ramzi, this is a turning point. Enraged by American and British support for Israel, he turns against everything Western. Apart from its vividness of character and description, the novel is popular because it succeeds in demolishing the myths of Arab invincibility and the West's neutrality in the Arab-Israeli conflict. It forces Arab readers to ask themselves whether they, too, are implicated in this national defeat and whether they need to rethink their attitude toward the West. In Ta'ir al-hawm (1988; The Crane, 2008), Barakat again creates a displaced protagonist, this time a college student who settles in Washington, D.C., but remains nostalgic for the small Syrian village where he grew up. Other Arab Novelists The appearance of Tayyib Salih's Mawsim al-hijra ila al-shamal (1967; Season of Migration to the North, 1969) was a major literary event in the Middle East. Salih (1929-2009), who was educated in London and worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation's Arabic Service before joining the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, created the first truly postcolonial Middle Eastern novel. Told by two British-educated narrators, one unnamed and the other a father of three named Mustafa, the novel moves back and forth between a small village in the Sudan and a London slowly emerging from the devastation caused by World War I. Just like the author, Mustafa has been sent on a scholarship to London. As a student, he frequents the bars and clubs of the Chelsea and Hampstead districts, attends gatherings of the Bloomsbury Group, and develops a strong affinity for Shaw and other Fabian socialists. He marries an Englishwoman and acquires the nickname the Black Englishman. He earns a Ph.D. in economics from the world famous London School of Economics. As he becomes increasingly critical of capitalism and colonialism, however, Mustafa begins to refer to himself as "a lie" and sets out to erase it. He turns his back on everything English and European and returns to his native village, where he marries a local woman and begins farming. He seems to blend in easily. Mustafa is attempting in this novel what postcolonial critics call the process of resistance and reconstruction: confronting the past in order to purge it of colonial influence and domination. However, this is an impossible task. On one hand, the English language has taken him further and further away from his roots. On the other hand, he declares war on hybridity at a time when the world is becoming increasingly hybridized. His suicide, as the other narrator makes clear, is meant to underline the futility of his undertaking. The novel seems to conclude that although hybridity might be painful, it should, as Chinua Achebe and Edward Said have said, be appropriated rather than discarded. In 2001, the Arab Literary Academy named Seasons of Migration to the North "the most important Arabic novel of the 20th century." What is most surprising about Salih is this: While the region's other novelists seemed unable or unwilling to disengage from the troubling political upheavals sweeping the region, Salih offered a novel oblivious to all the troubles, focusing instead on such postcolonial themes as identity, sexuality, spirituality, materialism, modernity, change, and the problem of belonging and not belonging to East and West. What is more, unlike his earlier work 'Urs az-Zen (1966; The Wedding of Zein, and Other Stories, 1968), Seasons of Migration to the North appropriated the techniques and forms of the European novel to create a stunning narrative of displacement that is rich in imagery and tone and multiple and fragmentary in scope. Abdelrahman Munif (1933-2004), another gifted contemporary Arab novelist, favors themes that deal with Arab nationalism and the impact of the discovery of oil on Middle Eastern societies. Because of his involvement in Arab nationalism, an ideology highly critical of the role of the United States in the Middle East, Munif was stripped of his Saudi Arabian citizenship in 1963, after which he moved to Damascus, Syria. Munif's 1975 novel, Sharq al-Mutawassit (the Mediterranean), is a bitter denunciation of the Arab governments that fought Israel in 1976. Despite their crushing defeat, these governments continued to talk about victory and the near annihilation of Israel, and they severely punished anyone who dared to speak against government policy. To underline the significance of the issue, the novel starts out with a quotation from the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In later works, Munif focused on the way that the discovery of oil changed age-old traditions and led to an increase in the region's domination by the West. His novel Sibaq al-masafat al-tawilah: Rihlah ila al-Sharq (1979; the long competition) is generally understood to be an allegorical study of Iran in the early 1950's. The United States, represented by the protagonist, cannot allow a popularly elected government to pursue independent oil policies. The Central Intelligence Agency overthrows the government and installs a puppet prime minister. Al-Tih (1984; Cities of Salt, 1987), the first volume in Munif's City of Salt quintet, dwells on a similar theme in a country resembling modern Saudi Arabia, perhaps one reason why the novel has been banned there. Americans arrive with equipment to look for oil. They bring with them prefabricated houses and air conditioning, and they start building roads and recreational facilities, all of which seem to be quite at odds with a nomadic way of life in this desert nation. Some of the Saudi citizens try to resist, but they are unsuccessful. The powerful clan leaders, with American support and supervision, transform the region into a modern police state. Such rivalries and disagreements about the United States and the forces of modernization are also the subject of the other volumes in the quintet: Al-Ukhdud (1985; The Trench, 1991), Taqasim al-layl wa-al-nahar (1989; Variations on Night and Day, 1993), Al-Munbatt (1989; the uprooted), and Badiyat al-zulumat (1989; the desert of darkness). However, the industrial world is not the only threat faced by the nomadic peoples of Munif's fiction. In Al-Nihat (1978; Endings, 1988), the conflict is with nature, in the form of a sandstorm. Israeli Novelists Since its creation in 1948, Israel has produced many highly gifted novelists who explore in a variety of forms and techniques what it means to be Jewish in a land where identity and nationality are challenged. One of the most distinguished novelists is the Ukrainian-born Holocaust survivor Aharon Appelfeld (born 1932), a speaker of many languages who also writes in Hebrew. His early shorter works, 'Ashan (1962; smoke), Ba-gai ha-poreh (1963; in the fertile valley), and others, are in the collection In the Wilderness: Stories (1965); the stories feature a series of dream sequences involving his experience with the Holocaust. The novels feel allegorical; they are dark and philosophical, poetic, and sometimes obscure. The novel Badenheim, 'ir nofesh (1975; Badenheim 1939, 1980) portrays a Europe in which to be labeled a Jew is tantamount to a death sentence. The protagonists were all born in Badenheim, but the Austrian authorities refuse to accept them as citizens and have no qualms about sending them to a concentration camp in Germany. The Jews live a life of isolation, uncertainty, fear, and denial. This is also the case with the protagonist of Bartfus ben ha-almavet (1988; The Immortal Bartfuss, 1988), who, in Appelfeld's words, "has swallowed the Holocaust whole." To survive, he must remain silent and distance himself from those around him. In To the Land of the Cattails (1986; also known as To the Land of the Reeds), Appelfeld takes readers once again to a Europe dominated by Adolf Hitler. It is the summer of 1939. A woman insists on going back to the land of her childhood, "the land of the cattails," not far from Appelfeld's own birthplace. She is accompanied by her son, Tony. The mother is caught by the Nazis and is shipped by train to an unknown destination. In desperation, Tony turns to alcohol and begins to negotiate an identity for himself based on his Jewish and Gentile heritage. In the end, suffering gives him no choice but to reject everything that is not Jewish. Mesilat barzel (1991; The Iron Tracks, 1998) deals with the aftermath of the Holocaust, as a survivor obsessively rides trains throughout Europe searching for his former concentration camp guard. Another distinguished Israeli novelist, A. B. Yehoshua (born 1936), also has written a number of short stories, plays, and screenplays. In his novels, Yehoshua tends to focus on issues that became central to the Israeli experience after the Six-Day War: the relationship between Jews and Arabs, the fight over territory, Israeli national borders, the large-scale displacement of Palestinians, and the conflict between Orthodox and secular Jews. His novel Bi-tehilat kayits 1970 (1972; Early in the Summer of 1970, 1977) takes readers to a postwar Israel. A father is still mourning a son killed in the Six-Day War. Midway through the story, however, the father learns that the reported death was a case of mistaken identity; the corpse discovered was not that of his son. Although he receives proof that his son is still alive, the father cannot stop grieving. The story is constructed in a circular pattern: The final chapter repeats the first with only a slight variation. Yehoshua uses a similar technique in his first novel, Ha-meahev (1977; The Lover, 1978), a series of monologues by different persons that intentionally leaves things murky. Readers do not know the exact identity of the "lover" of the title or, for that matter, why he has been adopted by the couple Asya and Adam. Also, readers do not know what bearing these personal events have on the national situation, such as the ongoing war with the Arabs. Reader also do not know what to make of the Arab Naim, who plays an important part in the novel. Things are less obscure in Molkho (1987; Five Seasons, 1989), Mar Mani (1990; Mr. Mani, 1992), and Gerushim me'uharim (1982; A Late Divorce, 1984). A Late Divorce concerns an American Jew who travels to Israel to divorce his Israeli-born wife. The story is meant to parallel the national debate on the relationship between Israel and the Diaspora of the Jews. After the divorce, in a clearly symbolic act meant to stress the inextricable linkage between the personal and the national, the man starts wearing his former wife's clothes. Yehoshua has won several prizes, including the 1995 Israel Prize for Literature. He also has published several novels in English translation, including Ha-Kalah ha-meshahreret (2001; The Liberated Bride, 2003) and Esh yedidutit (2007; Friendly Fire, 2008). No contemporary Israeli novelist matches Amos Oz's innovative writing about the Jewish experience in the Holy Land. Born in Jerusalem in 1939 and educated at Hebrew University, Oz became Israel's best-known novelist. After working as a visiting professor at a number of prestigious schools in the United States and Europe, he became a professor of Hebrew literature at Ben Gurion University in 1987. In addition to novels and novellas, Oz has written short stories, literary criticism, and political essays. Oz's first novel, Ma'kom a'her (1966; Elsewhere, Perhaps, 1973), juxtaposes two realities that seem to be at odds with each other. On the surface, the kibbutz life seems orderly, rational, peaceful, and fulfilling. Beneath the surface lurks a different reality, eleven times alluded to in the novel as the "other place." The place, however, remains mysterious throughout the novel; it is at once the source of yearning and revulsion, pain and gaiety. The upright father, Reuben, and his beautiful daughter, Noga, have come to the kibbutz to build a society that will presumably know no discrimination, injustice, or economic disparity. However, Noga finds herself drawn to Siegfried, the sinister visitor from Germany; much to Reuben's surprise and revulsion, Noga needs little persuading to give up her life on the kibbutz for a new one in Germany. Oz's highly popular novel Mikha'el sheli (1968; My Michael, 1972) also is set in a world in which the personal is a much stronger force in shaping people's lives than are national considerations. Told in the form of a memoir, the story is built around the mind of the leading female figure and narrator, Hannah, who remembers in vivid detail how she and Michael met, became engaged, and married in 1950. Within this personal narrative, readers also know that the national scene in Israel is peaceful, prosperous, and optimistic. This world of conformity and stability is juxtaposed with the private world of Hannah's fantasies, which involves Arab twins, rape, terror, surrender, domination, and suicide. While Israel happily celebrates its first decade of independence, Hannah's mind begins to disintegrate, creating a sharp contrast between two seemingly irreconcilable realities. Oz's writing is easily accessible, and his stories take place in recognizable Israeli settings. However, an element of mystery often surrounds his characters' private lives. La-da'at ishah (1989; To Know a Woman, 1991) and Matsav ha-shelishi (1991; Fima, 1993) present characters that seem to be on one level quite ordinary but on another level mysterious and perplexing. Another Israeli novelist, David Grossman (born 1954), had a considerable boost in stature after he received an award from the Book Publishers' Association of Israel in 1985. Like Oz, Grossman welds the political with the personal in a writing style that mixes stream-of-consciousness technique and journalistic reporting. A good example is Grossman's first novel, Hiuch ha-gedi (1983; Smile of the Lamb, 1990), a vivid representation of life in the West Bank under Israeli occupation. The story is told by both Israeli and Arab protagonists, the governors and the governed, and is a conflicting account of personal and political considerations. Although the novel seems to cast doubt on certainties, it nevertheless can be interpreted as making a case against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and in favor of Arab self-determination, a position Grossman restates unequivocally in his book of documentary nonfiction Ha-zeman ha-tzahov (1987; The Yellow Wind, 1988). Grossman's novel, Ayien erech: Ahavah (1986; See Under: Love, 1989), also uses multiple voices and modes. The first section, "Momik," reconstructs the Holocaust through the mind of a nine-year-old boy who relies more on his imagination than on his surviving relatives' accounts to understand exactly what happened at the concentration camps. The next three sections challenge chronology and traditional narrative techniques even further by making the boy rely entirely on fantasy to understand Bruno Schulz's death and Anshel Wasserman's experience in Auschwitz. Sefer hadikduk haprimi (1991; The Book of Intimate Grammar, 1994) does away with the adult narrator by making the child the fictionalized memoir's only voice. Several of Grossman's works of fiction are available in English translation. Again, for many Israeli writers, the political is inseparable from art. Israeli novelists have taken seriously their role as intellectuals with power and influence. Oz has long been an advocate of a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Grossman is a well-known peace activist, and Yehoshua is active in the Israeli peace movement. In 2006, in the middle of an armed conflict between Israel and Lebanon, Grossman, Oz, and Yehoshua held a joint press conference calling for a cease-fire and a negotiated solution. The Rise of Women Novelists The late 1950's saw the emergence of many women novelists in the Middle East, most famous among them Nawal al-Sa'dawi (born 1931), Hanan al-Shaykh (born 1945), and Ghadah al-Samman (born 1942). These writers embraced the novel form to address a critical issue in the religiously, socially, and culturally conservative Middle East: women's oppression. Sa'dawi, trained as a gynecologist, achieved fame through her many novels, short stories, plays, and critical essays that passionately crusaded for women's rights. Her first novel, Mudhakkirat Tabibah (1958; Memoirs of a Woman Doctor, 1988), which has been translated into many languages, is the story of a girl who becomes a doctor, and who remains nameless throughout the novel. As a child, the narrator becomes aware of the limitations imposed on her by a male-dominated culture. Unlike her brother, she cannot play in the street, cannot wear what she likes, cannot have short hair, and cannot go anywhere without her parents' permission. Out of frustration, she first turns against herself: "The first real tears I shed in my life weren't because I'd done badly at school or broken something but because I was a girl." She then begins questioning God's fairness as she starts to menstruate. Later, as a physician trying to dissect a male body, she is astounded by its unattractiveness; in a fit of anger and revenge against men for oppressing and harming women, she violently and repeatedly stabs the body. Her most shocking realization about what it means to be a woman in a patriarchal society comes when she is forced to give up her human rights in order to get married. Predictably, the marriage soon ends in a divorce. The doctor's fight is against an entire society and tradition. In agreeing to perform an abortion on a woman who had been raped, the doctor seems to speak for the author: "How could I punish her alone when I knew that her society as a whole had participated in the act?" Sa'dawi's 1987 novel, Suqut al-Imam (The Fall of the Imam, 1988), undermines the patriarchal order by taking on the very system upon which it is based. The imam, a religious and political figure of enormous authority, represents patriarchy. In the novel, to protect his authority, he must hide the fact that his own daughter is illegitimate. The novel then becomes a test of will between a father who is the ultimate symbol of power and tradition and his young daughter, who is determined to challenge that power. In the end the father is assassinated by an enraged public, and the daughter is hailed as a female Christ. Sa'dawi's writing demonstrates how difficult it is for a woman to write under patriarchy. Like Sa'dawi, Lebanese novelist Shaykh is both admired and vilified in the Middle East because of her feminism. Shaykh's first novel, Hikayat Zahrah (1980; The Story of Zahra, 1986), although hailed as a hallmark of Arab feminism, was banned in several Middle Eastern countries because of its vivid discussion of female sexuality. In the novel, Zahra quickly learns that to be a girl is to be condemned to lifelong servitude. Her brother, Ahmad, gets the best of everything and has the freedom to talk, play, and bring home friends. As she grows up, Zahra realizes that to be a woman is even worse; she is repeatedly raped by a cousin and later by a family friend. She has two abortions before reaching adulthood. In her helplessness, Zahra turns against herself and inflicts severe scars on her own face in the hope that men will no longer find her attractive. Her ordeal continues even in marriage, as she has to deal with an extremely abusive husband. Shaykh's Misk al-ghazal (1988; Women of Sand and Myrhh, 1989) is equally daring in its attack on patriarchy; it, too, was banned in most Middle Eastern countries. It is the story of four women living in an unnamed desert kingdom closely resembling modern Saudi Arabia. Their lives consist of series of less-than-fulfilling events and activities that center on the home, in which the women wear makeup and tight jeans, take pleasure in one another's bodies, and talk openly about their sexual problems. Two of them start a passionate lesbian romance. Another woman, a young widow by the name of Tamar, struggles to start a sewing business of her own. Because her father is dead, she is required to get her brother's permission to start the business. After he refuses, Tamar goes on a hunger strike, forcing the brother to give his consent. She then goes to an office to get permission from the government and is told that women are not allowed to enter the building. In the end, and against all odds, she gets the state's permission to open her business. Shaykh's novel is not just a dry narrative of social criticism. In sharp contrast to Sa'dawi's novels, Women of Sand and Myrrh is a highly readable book, full of tension and nastiness, but also joy, beauty, and laughter. Similar elements are also seen in Shaykh's Barid Bayrut (1992; Beirut Blues, 1995), an epistolary novel about an architect living amid war in Beirut, and in Innaha Landan ya 'azizi (2001; Only in London, 2001), about four strangers from the Middle East who meet on a plane heading for London. The status of women in the Middle East is also an important theme in the works of Syrian-born Lebanese resident Samman. For her, women's oppression cannot end until both men and women are liberated from dogma and repressive traditions. Samman studied English literature at the American University in Beirut and, after a short career in teaching, became a full-time writer in 1966, publishing four collections of short stories before writing her first novel in 1975. The novel, Bayrut 75 (Beirut '75, 1995), whose events coincide with the 1975 Lebanese civil war, begins with a taxi ride from Damascus, Syria, to Beirut, Lebanon, a city where the characters hope their dreams will come true. Farah wants to become a successful businessman, while Yasimina, a young woman who is fed up with her society's insistence that women belong in the home, hopes to find romance and a more fulfilling career than teaching at a convent. The taxi is black, the driver is unable to speak, and the three women passengers are all dressed in black--details clearly designed to foreshadow the novel's bleak outcome. In Beirut, success eludes Farah. For a while, Yasimina seems to be doing well. She spends her time in the company of a rich boyfriend sunbathing nude on his yacht. After years of seeing her body as "a burden, a corpse," she begins to discover it "as a world of pleasure." The pleasure, however, is short-lived. The daily bombing by Israeli planes of Palestinian targets in and around Beirut puts a stop to the normal flow of life. Yasimina's boyfriend breaks up with her. In desperation, she turns to her brother, a longtime Beirut resident, who takes her money and, after accusing her of tarnishing the family honor through her sexual transgressions, stabs her to death. Samman clearly intends the novel to be an exposé of horrific forms of social and political oppression, the responsibility for which must lie with both men and women. As she herself has said, "We should demand rights for women and men together--that is, demand rights for the repressed human race of which women form such a large part." Samman returns to this theme in her next novel, Kawabis Bayrut (1976; Beirut Nightmares, 1997), which is in the form of a series of nightmares involving a nameless female narrator's many struggles in a patriarchal society amid civil war. A stray bullet from a sniper goes through the narrator's apartment window, grazing her ear. She puts the bullet next to her pen, then comments, "this particular bullet . . . seemed to me at first sight as long as my pen. Then it grew and became a pillar of fire, while my pen trembled and shrank." Another bullet scores a direct hit at her university diploma. Later, a missile pierces her apartment, destroying her entire library. Through these images, Samman is trying to determine if violence can be justified in the name of revolution. The narrator herself has been trying to start some sort of a peaceful revolution against society: "My library was not merely books. It was a dialogue. Every book was a man with whom I had argued." She soon realizes that a peaceful revolution will have little chance of success in a war-torn country. At the end of the book, the narrator, despite serious misgivings ("I need it, but I still detest it"), begins to carry a pistol along with her pen. Other women writers of this region have broken new ground in the novel. Israeli Batya Gur (1947-2005) wrote a series of internationally respected and highly literary mystery novels featuring police detective Michael Ohayon. The novels include Retsah be-Shabat ba-boker (1988; The Saturday Morning Murder: A Psychoanalytic Case, 1992) and Retsah be-Derekh Bet Lehem (2001; Bethlehem Road Murder, 2004). Huda Barakat (born 1952) of Lebanon is the author of Hajar al-Dahik (1990; The Stone of Laughter, 1994), the first book by an Arab author to feature a gay protagonist. Turkey In its early days, the Turkish novel, especially those of Ahmet Mithat (1844-1912), Halit Ziya Usakligil (1866-1945), and Peyami Safa (1899-1961), extolled the virtues of Turkish society while at the same time stressing the importance of Western knowledge for material success. Safa's Fatih-Harbiye (1931) is a naturalistic portrayal of life in Fatih, an old Istanbul district where age-old traditions give men and women contrasting gender roles, and in Harbiye, a sprawling suburb of European-style homes and businesses where women work outside the home and do not have to cover their faces. Other early novelists, most notably Refik Halit Karay (1888-1965) and Resat Nuri Güntekin (1889-1956), found inspiration in the country's heartland, the Anatolia region, where the peasantry's seemingly harmonious relationship with nature proved alluring to them. This gradually developed into what came to be known as the peasant novel, and Yashar Kemal (born 1923), who emerged as Turkey's most famous novelist during the 1950's, was its undisputed perfecter. Kemal's many novels have been translated into some thirty languages, and he has been a frequent candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. The recipient of numerous awards, including the 1997 German Book Trade Peace Prize, Kemal was born in Turkey's southeast to the only Kurdish family in the poverty-stricken village of Hemite. Although Kemal moved to Istanbul in the early 1950's, the region of his birth and its poor peasantry continued to dominate his novels. Like William Faulkner, who was a strong influence on Kemal, the Turkish writer returned time and time again to his birthplace, weaving out of its people, their songs and legends, their lyrical ways with language, their many struggles, and their age-old traditions stories of epic proportions. Kemal's 1955 novel, Ince Memed (Memed, My Hawk, 1961), is the story of Memed, a fatherless peasant boy who must work long hours in the field to support himself and his mother. Unusually mature for his age, Memed puts up with an abusive, tyrannical landowner and scorching summer heat; the only bright spot in his life is his sweetheart, Hatche. However, the landlord, Abdi Agha, tries to force Hatche to marry his nephew, Veli. Hatche and Memed elope. In a shootout with the Agha and his men, Memed kills Veli, wounds the landlord, and escapes to the mountains. Hatche is eventually captured, charged with Veli's death, and thrown into prison. The story, however, is the stuff of legend: Memed returns, rescues his sweetheart, gives chase to the Agha, and divides his fields among the peasantry. As can be seen from this brief sketch, the novel is action-packed, cinematic, and quite lyrical in its rendering of the peasant imagination. These are also the qualities that characterize other Kemal novels that have been translated into English, especially Ölmez otu (1968; The Undying Grass, 1977) and Yilani öldürseler (1976; To Crush the Serpent, 1991). Though the latter is much shorter than Memed, My Hawk, its scope and style are easily recognizable. Esme is forced to marry Halil, whom she does not love, and the couple soon have a son, named Hasan. Esme's lover murders Halil, but most everyone in the village blames Esme for it. Killing a woman in revenge is out of the question. According to popular belief, however, failure to avenge the murder would result in the community being terrorized by Halil's spirit, which would return in the form of a poisonous snake. The burden is now on the young Hasan to avenge his father's death, but he decides to leave for the city rather than stay and become trapped in and possibly destroyed by violence. This plot twist reflects Kemal's outspoken criticism of feudalism. The novels of Orhan Pamuk (born 1952), highly acclaimed for their technical innovation and mesmerizing prose, have been translated into more than one dozen languages. Appropriating the techniques of such European writers as James Joyce, Marcel Proust, and Thomas Mann, Pamuk has created stories that explore Turkey's Ottoman past, its troubled present, and its uncertain future. Pamuk's international fame came with his third novel, Beyaz kale (1985; The White Castle, 1990). Set in the 1690's, the time when the Ottoman Empire began a decline, it tells the story of a Venetian aristocrat and a Turkish inventor known only as Hoja. Hoja sees the West as the source of all scientific knowledge. He invents a war machine with which he helps the sultan's army lay siege to a white castle in southern Poland. Hoja settles in Europe, while the Venetian retires to Anatolian exile. The identities of the two men remain unclear: Even though one is from the East and the other is from the West, they are interchangeable. The novel questions the notions of cultural and racial purity. The Venetian character is created out of all the fictions that the narrator has read and appropriated. There is also nothing real about the Ottoman character, for he, too, is created out of myths and stories that the Turkish state requires schoolchildren to learn as facts. The novel's theme is clearly postmodern: Where do the Turkish people living on the margins of Europe belong? East or West? Such questions are complicated even further, given that modern Turkey was founded on secular and Western, rather than religious and Eastern, principles. After the Ottoman defeat in World War I, modern Turkey was created in the West's image. Religion was banned as something backward and outdated, the Latin alphabet was introduced, the Turkish language was purged of its Arabic and Persian words, and the dervish sects were outlawed. As a result, most Turks today cannot read their own classical texts. Another complication comes from the fact that Turkey became a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1954, yet its attempts to join the European Union have been repeatedly rebuffed. Pamuk challenged himself to explore this enduring identity crisis, revisit the past rejected by the postwar government, and study the lines of filiation between East and West. Yeni hayat (1994; The New Life, 1997) is the story of a student who is greatly influenced by a mysterious book he has been reading. His country is big and sparsely populated; some of it is modernized and Westernized, but most of it remains tribal and traditional. The more the student tries to find out where he belongs, the more troubling and confusing the notion of identity becomes for him. Pamuk's view, expressed in this novel, is that all Turks, being in the "provinces of world culture," suffer from "this feeling of being off the track" and "forgotten." His next novel, Kar (2002; Snow, 2004), is set in the border city of Kar and examines the conflict between Western and Islamic cultures in Turkey. In 2006, Pamuk won the Nobel Prize in Literature, in recognition of his "quest for the melancholic soul of his native city" and his discovery of "new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures." Iraq The novel had a promising start in Iraq, a country with a long, rich literary tradition. Mahmud Ahmad al-Sayyid (1904-1937) and Dhu al-Nun Ayyub (1908-1996) began writing in the late 1930's, and Ayyub's 1939 Al-Duktur Ibrahim (Dr. Ibrahim), which deals with the moral bankruptcy of a Western-educated physician, became a best seller in Iraq. The establishment of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship in 1968 dealt a heavy blow to the novel as the state incorporated all forms of artistic and literary production into its massive propaganda machine in support of the leader. The policy forced many to quit writing altogether, but some chose to collaborate with the state. Typical of such work is the massive Al-Ayyam al-tawila (1978-1981; The Long Days, 1979-1982), a novel by 'Abd al-Amir Mu'allah that transforms Hussein into a heroic figure of mythic proportions. Under Hussein, the novel was mandatory reading for soldiers, students, and government employees, and it was made into a six-hour film. Hussein himself published four novels--tawdry romances--during his rule; it is assumed that they were ghostwritten. The years of sanctions and oppression under Hussein, and the subsequent war with the United States and allies begun in 2003, has made it nearly impossible for a new era of artistic expression to emerge. Sabah A. Salih; Allen, Roger. The Arabic Novel: An Historical and Critical Introduction. 2d ed. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1995. Organized chronologically, this readable study examines the development of the Arabic novel into a serious literary genre after World War II. Provides detailed analyses of many novelists and their works. Chertok, Haim. We Are All Close: Conversations with Israeli Writers. New York: Fordham University Press, 1989. Thorough and detailed discussion of themes, techniques, and ideological positions that have become the hallmark of such Israeli writers as David Grossman, Amos Oz, Abraham Yehoshua, and Aharon Appelfeld. Fuchs, Esther. Israeli Mythogynies: Women in Contemporary Hebrew Fiction. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987. Thought-provoking study that surveys Israeli literature from a feminist perspective. Examines the representation of gender and related issues in the works of male and female writers of Hebrew fiction. Mehrez, Samia. Egyptian Writers Between History and Fiction: Essays on Naguib Mahfouz, Sonallah Ibrahim, and Gamal al-Ghitani. Rev. ed. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2005. Thorough literary-historical study of three influential Egyptian novelists. Mehrez attempts "to bridge the gap between the literary and the historical, the personal and the collective, the aesthetic and the ideological." Meyer, Stefan G. The Experimental Arabic Novel: Postcolonial Literary Modernism in the Levant. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. Discusses modernism, experimentation, "Arabization," and questions facing Arab writers as they employ a postcolonial perspective in their modernist works. Mikhail, Mona. Seen and Heard: A Century of Arab Women in Literature and Culture. Northampton, Mass.: Olive Branch Press, 2004. Study examining the ways women have been represented in Arabic texts and the ways they have represented themselves. Chapters include "Masculine Ideology or Feminine Mystique: A Study of Writings on Arab Women," "I Light Ten Candles: Women and Vow-making," and "`A New Vision of the Veil,' by Iqbal Barraka." Orfalea, Gregory. "The Arab American Novel." MELUS 31, no. 4 (Winter, 2006): 115-133. Scholarly but accessible look at the Arab American novel, part of a special issue on Arab American literature. A journal of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS). Ramras-Rauch, Gila. The Arab in Israeli Literature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. A useful and accessible discussion of how the Arab-Israeli encounter has been portrayed in the novels of David Grossman, Abraham Yehoshua, Amos Oz, Aharon Appelfeld, and others. Shaaban, Bouthaina. Voices Revealed: Arab Women Novelists, 1898-2000. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2009. Demonstrates the innovations women have brought to the Arabic novel, and traces the parallels between the reception of the novels of female authors and their changing position in Arab countries. Argues that "Arab women were pioneers in the creation of the Arab novel--though until now they have been little known." Silberschlag, Eisig. From Renaissance to Renaissance: Hebrew Literature in the Land of Israel. New York: KTAV, 1977. A solid and thorough discussion of the origins, developments, themes, and circumstances of early Israeli literature, with a long chapter on the novel. Suleiman, Yasir, and Ibrahim Muhawi, eds. Literature and Nation in the Middle East. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. Analyzes the representation of the idea of "nation" in the literature of Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, and the Sudan. |
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