- Yaḥya Ḥaqqī (1905 – 1992, Egypt) – Qindīl Umm Hāshim (1944, English trans. The Lamp of Umm Hashim, 2006). Ismaʿil, the main protagonist, goes through a spiritual crisis while studying in England and feels estranged from his environment returning to Egypt (reference) (see for more information in F: Family Life: Children and Adolescents: Arabic Bildungsroman and W: Outside the Arab world: West and the Arab world: Europe: England).
- Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal (1888 – 1956, Egypt) – Hākadhā Khuliqat (‘Thus it was created’, 1955). This novel describes how a semi-educated Egyptian woman living in Cairo destroys the life and career of her husband, a doctor of peasant origins, and, after divorcing and remarrying, that of her new husband. The work reflects the disillusion of an author who has witnessed profound transformations in Egyptian society during its confrontation with Western culture (reference).
- ʿĀʾishah Ibrāhīm (1969-, Libya) – Qaṣīl (‘Qasil’, 2016). This novel depicts the stunning nature of Libya’s valleys, mountains, and caves where people have lived for centuries. Qaṣīl, hero of the novel, was born and raised in the Bani Walid tribe in Libya in the 1980s. As he gets more influenced by the beauty of the nature, he begins to follow Sufi rituals and calls for preserving traditions in the face of modern developments, including the looming demolition of the old mosque (also in N: Nature: Desert).
- Maḥmūd al-Masʿadī’s (1911 – 2004, Tunisia) play al-Sidd (‘The dam’, 1955), revolves around two main characters, the married couple Ghaylān and Maymūra, and is a satire on the conflicts that exist between traditional conservatives and social reformers and modernizers, whose fits of enthusiasm are often idealistic and unrealistic at one and the same time. Ghaylān and Maymūra live in a barren land near a mountain with a well that will bring great joy to the people if used, but it is not due to religious reasons (reference). The novel makes use of many mythical elements such as speaking animals and objects that turn into creatures (reference).
- Muhammed Mrabet (1936-, Morocco) – The Lemon (1969). In this novel, Abdelslam, a boy from Tangier, is forced by his father to abandon his Koranic studies at the mosque and enrol in a secular school (reference). Though his father believes this will prepare Abdelslam for the modern world, Abdelslam rebels, leading him to an uncertain existence living with different people in a culturally mixed and chaotic world (reference). Mrabet recounted his story to Paul Bowels, who, as he did with many of Mrabet and others’ stories, wrote it down into an English-language novel (reference).
- Hudā al-Rashīd (1950-, Saudi Arabia) – Ghadan Yakūn al-Khamīs (‘Tomorrow will be Thursday’, 1979). Set in an unspecified Arab country, hero of this novel, Nawwāl, a journalist, lives with her mother. She is an educated woman who refuses to marry, until she falls in love with the US educated Aḥmad. Aḥmad supports her when her mother falls ill, but when his sister gets married and he returns to his village, his open attitude towards Nawwāl’s free-spiritedness changes. When he is not there for her when her mother dies, she breaks off the relationship (reference).
- Emna Bel Haj Yahia’s (1945-, Tunisia) Chronique frontalière (‘Border chronicle’, 1991). Chronique frontalière centers two female characters, Zeïneb and Narjess, who struggle in a postcolonial Tunisia that is divided between the secular and sacred, and tradition and modernity (reference). Zeïneb, the happily married mother of two, struggles with being confronted with signs of modernity in Tunisia. On the contrary, Narjess, an orphan and eternal rebel unable to fit in Tunisian society, tries her luck in exile in France after meeting a Frenchman, but is again confronted with rejection and meets a tragic end (reference).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Nedal M. al-Mousa. 1993. “The Arabic Bildungsroman: A Generic Appraisal.” IJMES, 25 (2): 223-240, p. 227
- EAL, p. 278
- Ismāʾīl bin Ṣafiyah. 2019. “Al-Ḥuḍūr al-Usṭūriyyah fī Riwāya al-Sidd li-Maḥmūd al-Masʿūdī.” Majallah Anthrūbūlūjiyat al-Adjān 16(1): 301-316, p. 306, 309
- Richard F. Patteson. 1992. “Paul Bowles / Mohammed Mrabet: Translation, Transformation, and Transcultural Discourse.” Journal of Narrative Technique 22(3): 180-190, p. 182, 184, 185
- 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. 93
- Rowswitha Zahlner Casmier. 2015. “Emerging Narrative Worlds in Emna Belhaj Yahia’s Novels ‘Chronique frontalière’ (1991), ‘L’Étage invisible’ (1996), ‘Tasharej’ (2000), and ‘Jeux de rubans’ (2011).” Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association 48(2): 113-136, p. 115, 117, 118