The Arabic Novel E I
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Acrylic on canvas, 100 X About the London Middle East Institute (LMEI) 80 CM. Courtesy of the artist Th e London Middle East Institute (LMEI) draws upon the resources of London and SOAS to provide teaching, training, research, publication, consultancy, outreach and other services related to the Middle Volume 15 – Number 1 East. It serves as a neutral forum for Middle East studies broadly defi ned and helps to create links between December 2018– individuals and institutions with academic, commercial, diplomatic, media or other specialisations. January 2019 With its own professional staff of Middle East experts, the LMEI is further strengthened by its academic membership – the largest concentration of Middle East expertise in any institution in Europe. Th e LMEI also Editorial Board has access to the SOAS Library, which houses over 150,000 volumes dealing with all aspects of the Middle East. 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ISSN 1743-7598 Contents 4 16 EDITORIAL Th e prize-winning Arabic novel Muhsin al-Musawi 5 LMEI Board of Trustees INSIGHT 18 Th e Arabic novel: a general Th e Arabic novel in the Digital Baroness Valerie Amos (Chair) Director, SOAS introduction Age Dr Orkideh Behrouzan, SOAS Paul Starkey Tarek El-Ariss Professor Stephen Hopgood, SOAS Dr Lina Khatib, Chatham House 7 20 Dr Dina Matar, SOAS THE NOVEL IN THE ARAB Arabic novels in translation – Dr Hanan Morsy African Development Bank WORLD waiting for the breakthrough Professor Scott Redford, SOAS Th e novel is the number one Jonathan Wright Mr James Watt, CBRL Arab literary genre Abdullah Ibrahim 22 Photo competition results 8 Prose: the modern chronicle of 24 LMEI Advisory Council the Arabs REVIEWS Lady Barbara Judge (Chair) Hartmut Fähndrich BOOKS Professor Muhammad A. S. Abdel Haleem My Name is Adam: Children of H E Khalid Al-Duwaisan GVCO Ambassador, Embassy of the State of Kuwait 10 the Ghetto Volume 1 Mrs Haifa Al Kaylani Th e Iraqi novel emerges from Nora Parr Arab International Women’s Forum the womb of disaster Dr Khalid Bin Mohammed Al Khalifa President, University College of Bahrain Hussain Alsagaaf 25 Professor Tony Allan King’s College and SOAS Lords of the Desert: Britain’s Dr Alanoud Alsharekh 12 Struggle with America to Senior Fellow for Regional Politics, IISS Th e environmental ethics of the Dominate the Middle East Mr Farad Azima NetScientifi c Plc Libyan novel James Watt Dr Noel Brehony MENAS Associates Ltd. Charis Olszok Professor Magdy Ishak Hanna 26 British Egyptian Society 14 BOOKS IN BRIEF HE Mr Rami Mortada Ambassador, Embassy of Lebanon Season of migration to the novel: transformations and 28 phenomena EVENTS IN LONDON Yassin Adnan December 2018 – January 2019 The Middle East in London 3 EEDITORIALDITORIAL DDearear RReadereader Margaret Obank, publisher of Banipal magazine he Arabic Novel is receiving more recent times of the International Prize Muhsin al-Musawi writes of the increasing attention as THE genre for Arabic Fiction (from 2008) and the so- ‘unprecedented volume of novel production’ Tin which imagination, memory, called ‘Arab Spring’ (from late 2010). and relates it to a cultural need to talk, and thoughts, and past and present reality can Hartmut Fähndrich, translator of so write, during this time of destruction and join together and reach across countries, Arabic fi ction into German, considers the trauma. He is critical of ‘surplus narration languages and cultures. Th is attention began relationship of the novel to the development and needless digression’ of other narrative 20 years ago with Egyptian critic Gaber of the nation state; and that forms of the devices that build on ‘an already established Asfour and his then highly controversial novel are now infi nitely variable as Arab link’ to capture readers. article, ‘Zaman al-Riwayah’ (Time of the authors react to the tremors that are shaking Tarek El-Ariss writes on the Arabic novel Novel), which sparked heated discussions their societies. in the Digital Age and describes in chilling and launched a debate that has continued Iraqi author and critic Hussain Alsagaaf detail how the digital pulse has led to some until today. In this issue, Iraqi critic investigates the massive change and authors becoming unwitting parts of their Abdullah Ibrahim goes further, maintaining explosion in novel writing in Iraq since the own work. As social media weaves ever- that Arabic ‘narrative, in old times and new, US occupation in 2003 and the overthrow new connections with other media, literary has always had the upper hand’. of Saddam Hussein. Charis Olszok looks at systems and online activism, new literary Our contributors include academics, the ‘frustrated potential’ of Libyan literary models emerge, with drastic implications literary translators, and author-critics fi ction under Gaddafi ’s 42-year rule through for the formation of a future literary canon. writing from the UK, Switzerland, Iraq, the infl uential Libyan novel From Mecca to Jonathan Wright, who translates Arabic Morocco and the US – with diverse points Here by al-Sadiq al-Nayhum. fi ction into English, is confi dent that with of view, making diverse