(1998). Recent publications: Arabic literature. Arabic & Middle Eastern Literature: Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 233-245.
Nathan Shaham's novel, Series, is one of the most significant contemporary Israeli texts to explore the representation of cultural identity in general and of Jewish and Israeli identities in particular. The present article, which forms part of a larger analysis of poetic devices used in Hebrew literary texts to scrutinize issues of identity, discusses how Shaham employs text and image as devices to represent this investigation. Israeli writers are increasingly re-examining the national identity shaped for them by the founding Zionists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, focusing in particular on their desire to construct a secular and revolutionary 'New Jew' in the context of a fresh (or refreshed) attachment to the ancestral homeland, and of a reversal and rejection of the diaspora. It is recognized that they created an inseparable link between ideology and identity of the kind condemned by Theodor Adorno, a Marxist of the Frankfurt School, on the grounds that these tend to equate distinct phenomena, suppress contradiction and 'homogenize' the world. Adorno saw the primal form of 'ideology' as 'identity' and recognized how it threatens to process social conflict out of existence in a 'totalitarian' way. Art alone speaks up for the differential and non-identical, promoting the claims of the sensuous particular against the tyranny of a seamless totality. Terry Eagleton has argued against this condemnation on the grounds that the ideological conditions of western societies are mixed and self-contradictory rather than totalitarian, but both his and Adorno's views confirm the closeness of the link between identity and ideology, a conjunction evident especially in Zionism. The debate over the desirability or otherwise of ideology is one of the central themes of Shaham's novel, Series. In this the author recounts the work of a television crew who, in 1991, at the height of the intifada? were engaged in planning a 10-programme documentary series for Israeli television. The omniscient narrator adopts the viewpoint of a different major character in each chapter. The principal protagonist, Adam Bauman, now aged 40, had been a famous film-maker in Poland, but had not made a film since he moved to the United States and later to Israel where he now lives. He chose as his cameraman Peter Kelner, an American aged nearly 50 and, as a researcher, Na'ama Sternberg, an Israeli-born woman in her 20s. All three are of Ashkenazi extraction, implicitly excluding the Oriental Jews who form roughly half of the population from this vision of contemporary Israeli society. Peter, inspired perhaps by American values, wants to depict ten exceptional characters (16); Adam, coloured by his Polish background, prefers 'unimportant' (17) or 'grey' ones. The narrator explains that 'he has a hidden ambition to succeed where others had failed. Any director can make an attractive film about big people. But only
(2001). Zeida de nulle part de Leila Houari: l'ecriture de l'entre‐deux. Arabic & Middle Eastern Literature: Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 43-52.
Apres avoir resume en quelques pages la carriere d'Alexandre fils de Philippe, dans le vingt-sixieme chapitre de ses Prairies d'or, al-Mas'udl opere un retour en arriere pour raconter l'histoire de la rencontre du conquerant avec un roi-philosophe repondant au nom de Kand. Alors que tous les autres rois de la region s'etaient empresses de faire leur soumission et de porter tribut au Macedonien, c'est seulement par oui-dire que ce dernier apprit tout d'abord l'existence, aux confins du monde indien (fi aqdsi ard al-Hind), d'un roi repute pour sa sagesse et sa bonne administration. On lui pretait une existence de plusieurs centaines d'annees et il avait completement subjugue en lui Tame concupiscible et I'ame irascible. Alexandre lui envoie une missive arrogante le sommant de se presenter devant lui toutes affaires cessantes sous peine de voir son royaume aneanti. A cela l'lndien repond fort poliment qu'il possede des biens dont personne n'a l'equivalent et qu'il se propose de venir les remettre en personne a son correspondant. II s'agit d'une jeune fille telle que le soleil n'en a jamais vu de plus belle; d'un philosophe qui repond aux questions avant meme qu'on les lui ait posees, telle est l'acuite de son esprit et l'etendue de son savoir; d'un medecin si habile que la mort est bien la seule maladie dont il ne puisse vous preserver; et enfin une coupe a laquelle toute une armee peut se desalterer sans qu'elle cesse pour autant d'etre pleine a ras bords. Rempli de convoitise pour des biens aussi precieux, Alexandre envoie alors une delegation de sages escortee de troupes a Kand pour s'assurer de la veracite de ses dires. S'il a dit vrai, les envoyes ont pour mandat de rapporter les objets et les personnes en question et de laisser le roi en paix; dans le cas contraire, de le ramener lui a Alexandre. Les sages grecs se proposent de proceder a l'examen de la premiere affirmation du roi indien (la jeune fille) en presumant que si ce point s'avere exact, il en ira de meme des autres. Le roi, fianque de ses philosophes, commence par faire subir aux Grecs une sorte d'examen de philosophic naturelle et metaphysique, discutant longuement du Premier Principe et des phenomenes celestes. Apres quoi il fait entrer la jeune fille: totalement subjugues par sa beaute, ses hotes ne peuvent en detacher leurs regards au point que Ton a lieu de craindre pour leur raison. Une fois qu'ils ont k grand-peine retrouve leurs esprits, le roi les renvoie avec les quatre presents promis a Alexandre. Ce dernier n'est pas moins ebloui que ses sujets par la belle esclave et la fait enfermer avec soin dans son harem. II se dispose ensuite a mettre le philosophe a l'epreuve. Apres avoir longuement medite, il remplit une coupe de beurre a ras bords, de maniere qu'on ne puisse rien y ajouter, et la lui envoie. Celui-ci reflechit a son tour, persuade que le roi doit avoir une
(2001). Mizrahi and Ashkenazi in the Israeli theatre. Arabic & Middle Eastern Literature: Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 19-36.
(2001). Childhood and modern Arabic literature: the initiation story. Arabic & Middle Eastern Literature: Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 167-178.
(2001). Transgenerique et modernite dans la litterature arabe. Arabic & Middle Eastern Literature: Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 157-166.
Le Ddrdb Name de Tarsusi, recit semi-populaire en prose du 6712 siecle environ, n'est aucunement un roman "de 'ayydrs", c'est-a-dire un roman dans lequel interviennent de facon significative des jeunes gens issus de milieux populaires urbains et developpant, au sein de confraternites, des qualites de conduite relevant du code ethique de javdnmardi. Pour cette definition du 'ayydr "professionnel", dont l'activite consiste a mettre ses capacites specifiques au service d'une cause ou d'une autre, on se refere evidemment au tableau que peut nous offrir un texte comme le Samak-e 'Ayydr, le roman de Faramarz b. Xodadad b. 'Abd Allah al-Kateb al-Arrajani, mis par ecrit au debut du 6/12 siecle environ et qui, en tant que recit a portee didactique, est intentionnellement tres explicite sur ce en quoi consistent 'ayydri et javdnmardi et leur exercice. Cependant, a la lecture du Ddrdb Name, l'attention ne peut manquer d'etre attiree par la frequence d'apparition des termes 'ayydrfl) et javdnmard(i) (adjectifs ou substantifs). Le premier y est utilise quarante et une fois, le second cent soixante deux fois. Le recit peut mentionner des 'ayydrs proprement dits, tels ceux de la ville d'Alep, appeles 'ayydrdn-e sahr, mais ils ne sont pas montres dans l'action quotidienne (I, p. 488). Ailleurs, le terme est plus souvent employe pour qualifier une maniere d'agir que pour designer une personne definie au travers d'un ensemble de competences particulieres, et il ne se rapporte de toute facon pas a des 'ayydrs de profession. Aussi tous ces termes interviennent-ils comme des mots courants dans le recit, utilises de fa?on usuelle, et c'est par le seul contexte — encore que celui-ci soit parfois absent —, que Ton peut se faire une idee de la situation qui a motive leur choix. En confrontant done les termes et leur champ d'emploi a ce qu'on sait du Samak-e 'Ayydr, on va tenter de voir ce qu'il y a de persistant ou de variable, d'un recit a l'autre, en ce qui concerne les situations, et surtout en ce qui concerne les acteurs de ces situations, puisque dans le Ddrdb Name aucun d'eux n'est un veritable 'ayydr.
The selection that follows is a translation of the first juz of the 1972 play Sahrah mda Abi Khaltl al-Qabbānī [An Evening's Entertainment with Abū Khalīl al-Qabbam; hereafter Sahrah] by the Syrian playwright and critic Sa'dallāh Wannus (b. 1941, d. 1997). Sahrah is about theatre. It emphasizes all those elements about which Wannus discourses in his critical writings, notably the primacy of the audience and the crowd (jutnhūr); the politicizing (tasyis) effect of theatre; the various processes of alienation (taghrīb); and the presence of a narrator who constantly reminds the audience of the fact that this is merely a play, a soiree, an evening of entertainment, a documentary. The importance of Wannu's prefatory remarks cannot be overemphasized. In these he reminds both reader and director of the importance of the relationship between audience and action. Underlying both the Wannus play and the frameplay, as he has chosen to present it, are not only political lessons but also, less obviously, theoretical lessons about the theatre. This is a play about freedom of artistic expression, about what theatre is and what theatre does. In some ways it is Wanmls's signature, his way of defining himself in a continuum of which he considers himself a very real part.
'Following the dawn prayer, with clouds of darkness defying the vigorous thrust of light, the vizier Dandan was called to a meeting with the sultan Shahrayar. Dandan's composure vanished. The heart of a father quaked within him as, putting on his clothes, he mumbled "Now the outcome will be resolved—your fate Shahrazad"' (1). Thus begins Naguib Mahfouz's 1979 novel Layali alf layla (The Nights of the Thousand Nights). Setting the novel in the aftermath of the original Arabian Nights—one thousand and one nights' worth of storytelling later—Mahfouz investigates not the fate of Shahrazad the woman, but the fate of Shahrazad the storyteller. Is the function of Shahrazad's stories of wonder and marvel Qiikaydt 'ajiba wa-ghartba, 'aja'ib zvaghard'ib) limited to taming the king's temper, distracting him from spilling blood and saving the nation? And now all that has been accomplished, what becomes of stories? Mahfouz interrogates and demonstrates in his novel the function of storytelling in the Arab world during the post-Arabian Nights era, today. In the thousand days and nights following the completion of Shahrazad's stories, Shahrayar lives the stories Mahfouz tells. As the narrative structures of the original Nights—frame within frame within yet another frame—collapse, the characters from the separate worlds in Shahrazad's stories all congregate and interact in the textual space created by Mahfouz. The characters in the frametale—the storyteller Shahrazad, her complicit partner Dunyazad, their father Dandan and their audience Shahrayar—all become active participants in the stories started by Shahrazad and now being told by Mahfouz as one single story. Nur al-Din, 'Ala' al-Din, Ma'riif al-Iskafi, Sindbad, AnTs al-Jalls, Qut al-Qulub, Jullanar—to name but a few—become the members of the same community—the famous Mahfouzian hara or hayy; in fact, the men are all acquaintances, even friends, who frequent the quarter's coffeehouse and use it as their usual get-together place. More importantly Shahrayar, having learned his lessons well from Shahrazad, now often emulates Harun al-Rashld, disguising himself as a merchant and touring his kingdom at night to inspect his people and their affairs, accompanied only by his vizier and chamberlain. As he lives and hears the stories of his people, especially their entanglement with power, he realizes the responsibilities that come with it. Burdened by his present realization and haunted by his bloody past, he abandons his kingdom, palace, wife and child, leaving government to Ma'riif al-Iskafi and Nur al-Din who have proved to be incorruptible, and 'Abdallah al-'Aqil who has learned the responsibility of power in his various incarnations. Mahfouz's novel is as much about the demystification of authority perceived in the
(2000). The Palestinians in Israel: towards a minority literature. Arabic & Middle Eastern Literature: Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 219-234.
