- Muḥammad al-Gharbī ʿAmrān (1958-, Yemen) – Musḥaf Aḥmar (‘Red Quran’, 2010). The Yemeni Sambariyya sends her son, who is studying in Baghdad, descriptions of his father’s letters to her. The father writes of his experiences fighting for a united Yemen in a time when the Zaydī Imām controlled the north, and the British controlled the south. She also describes her life as a prostitute in Sanaʿa. When the father dies in battle, Sambariyya continues writing to her son about the political and social developments in a divided Yemen.
- ʿAmmar Bāṭwīl (1981-, Yemen) – Ṭarīq Mawlā Maṭr (‘The path of Mawla Matar’, 2019). This is fictional telling of life in Hadhramawt from early 1930s to the end of the 1960s, describing the resistance of the Badawi tribes against British occupation and the sultan in al-Mukallah, who was supported by the British colonial forces (reference). The novel emphasized the role of women in this struggle (reference).
- ʿAlī al-Muqrī (1966-, Yemen) – Bakhūr ʿAdanī (‘Adeni incense’, 2014). This novel is set in the Yemeni city of Aden during the British occupation in the 1940s until its independence in 1967. It follows several characters living in the cosmopolitan city made up of different religions, ethnicities, and nationalities. Among others it describes the forced departure of Jews in 1948. It also follows a French man who calls himself lā Shīʾ, who arrived the city in search of a new identity. Another is his friend Māmā, a young girl found at the seashore by a British family who take her in. After independence tensions between the different social groups increased (also in C: Cities: Yemen: Aden).
- Sulṭān al-Qaḥṭānī (1950-, Saudi Arabia) – Ṭāʾir bi-lā Janāḥ (‘A bird without wings’, 1981). In this novel, an old Yemeni man, Saʿīd, works at a hotel in Aden in the days of the British occupation, when one of his guests, a ship captain, offers him the job of being a steward on his ship (reference). When the ship breaks down in Djibouti, Saʿīd travels to England for a period of time. But he returns to Djibouti where he develops a friendship with the family of manager of the hotel he started working at. Yet his ties to the family turn out to be deeper than he thought.
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Osama Ali, Fadhilah Gubari, Julia Gurol, and Abdelsalam al-Rubaidi. 2022. “Narratives of (In)Justice in Contemporary Yemeni Novels: Representations of Socio-Political Practices and Normative Constructions.” CARPO Study no. 11, 22 March 2022, p. 7 (retrieved from https://carpo-bonn.org/en/narratives-of-injustice-in-contemporary-yemeni-novels/, 6 May 2023)
- Sultan S.M. Al-Qahtani. 1994.The novel in Saudi Arabia: emergence and development 1930-1989: an historical and critical study. (doctoral dissertation University of Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom) Retrieved from http://theses.gla.ac.uk/8131/ (last accessed 4 May 2021) p. 130