- Līnā Hūyān al-Ḥasan (1977-, Syria) – ʾAlmās wa al-Nisāʾ (‘Diamonds and women’, 2014). Describing multiple generations of female Arab exiles, particularly Syrians, this novel takes the reader to Paris, Sao Paolo, and Damascus. It is set from the beginnings of the 20th century until the 1980s. Heroine of the novel, Almāẓ, is witness to the important events of the Arab world in the previous decade, as well as the life of migrants in exile. The novel describes the challenges that women face in exile, in addition to the heroine’s difficult marriage to the senior Lebanese count Karam Shāhīn al-Khūrī (reference).
- Milton Hatoum (1952-, Brazil) – Relato de um Certo Oriente (‘Tale of a Certain Orient’, 1989) centers a woman who returns after many years of absence to Manaus, the city of her childhood. She wants to reconnect with Emilie, the matriarch of a Lebanese immigrant family who raised her.
- Salim Miguel (1924 – 2016, Lebanon) – Nur na Escuridão (‘Nur in the Darkness’, 1999). The semi-autobiographical novel tells the story of a Lebanese immigrant family (the Miguel family) who emigrates to Brazil in 1927 (reference).
- Alberto Mussa (1961-, Brazil) – O enigma de Qaf (2004, English trans. The riddle of Qaf, 2008). A modern Brazilian poet of Lebanese descent travels to the Middle East in search of who originally composed the famous Muʿallaqāt poems (reference) (also in L: Cultural and Literary Heritage: Pre-Islamic Literature: Muʿallaqāt). Inspired by reading Bedouin pre-Islamic poetry, the author, himself also from Lebanese descent, describes how the narrator is in search of a ‘forgotten’ poem, presumably written by al-Gatash, with the title Qafiya al-Qaf (reference).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Nabḍ al-Mawāqiʿ. 2017. “‘ʾAlmās wa Nisāʾ’.. Ṣawt al-Marʾah al-Muhamish.” www.alkhaleej.ae, 17 July 2017, https://www.alkhaleej.ae/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AB%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%81%D8%A9/%C2%AB%D8%A3%D9%84%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B3-%D9%88%D9%86%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%A1%C2%BB-%D8%B5%D9%88%D8%AA-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%A3%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%87%D9%85%D8%B4 (last accessed 27 August 2022)
- Wāʾil S. Ḥassan. 2011. “Al-Adab al-Brāzīlī: Maʿalaqah Albirtū Mūsā wa Ḥiwār al-Junūb – al-Junūb.” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 31, pp. 215-229
- Cristhiano Aguiar. 2017. “Memória e Representação Ficcional em ‘O Enigma de Qaf’, de Alberto Mussa.” Encontros de Vista 19(1): 47-59, p. 50
- Alberto Mussa. 2019. “How I Wrote ‘The Riddle of Qaf’.” Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas 52(2): 243-252, p. 244