The anchor book of modern arabic fiction /
Denys Johnson-Davies.
- 2nd ed.
- [S.l.] : Anchor, 2006.
- 512 p. ; 20 cm.
This dazzling anthology features the work of seventy-nine outstanding writers from all over the Arab-speaking world, from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, Syria in the north to Sudan in the south. Edited by Denys Johnson-Davies, called by Edward Said ���the leading Arabic-to-English translator of our time,��� this treasury of Arab voices is diverse in styles and concerns, but united by a common language. It spans the full history of modern Arabic literature, from its roots in western cultural influence at the end of the nineteenth century to the present-day flowering of Naguib Mahfouz���s literary sons and daughters. Among the Egyptian writers who laid the foundation for the Arabic literary renaissance are the great Tawfik al-Hakim; the short story pioneer Mahmoud Teymour; and Yusuf Idris, who embraced Egypt���s vibrant spoken vernacular. An excerpt from the Sudanese writer Tayeb Salih���s novel Season of Migration to the North, one of the Arab world���s finest, appears alongside the Libyan writer Ibrahim al-Koni���s tales of the Tuaregs of North Africa, the Iraqi writer Mohamed Khudayir���s masterly story ���Clocks Like Horses,��� and the work of such women writers as Lebanon���s Hanan al-Shaykh and Moro