- Sinān Antūn (1967-, Iraq) – Waḥdaha Shajarat al-Rummān (2010, English trans. The Corpse Washer, 2013). This novel depicts the young Jawād, who must abandon his studies to become a sculptor to return to his ancestral and intricate work as Shiite corpse washer when the corpses pile up in an Iraq, including that of his father, as sectarian killings and the culture of violence and death prevails. The novel gives an often grim and detailed picture of Iraq during the sectarian violence following 2003 US-led invasion. The English translation won the 2014 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Literary Translation (also in 2003 – 2011: Invasion of Iraq).
- Muḥammad Birrādah’s (1938-, Morocco) short story ‘Ḥikāyat al-Rʾas al-Maqṭūʿ’ (‘Story of the decapitated head’), which is to be found in the collection Salakh al-Jild (‘Peeling off the skin’, 1979), tells of a travelling decapitated head. The story can be read as a criticism of the lack of free speech in Morocco.
- Ḥassan Blāsim (?, Iraq) – Mʿaraḍ al-Juthat: Majnūn Sāḥah al-Ḥurīya al-Masīḥ al-ʿIrāqī wa QiṣaṣʾUkhrā (2014, English trans. The Corpse Exhibition and Other Stories of Iraq, 2014), a collection of short stories that are primarily concerned with daily life in an Iraq, where violence dominates everyday life. Every story is linked to a crime and depicts different characters coping with war and their violent past. In one story, ‘The Song of the Goats’, for example, Iraqis compete in a radio game show for who tells the most gruesome anecdote (reference).
- Kamel Daoud’s (1970-, Algeria) – Zobor ou Les psaumes (2017, English trans. Zabor, or the Psalms, 2020). After the protagonist of this novel, Zabor, lost his mother, he finds comfort and refuge in endless reading and writing. He is convinced that if he writes, he will keep death far away, and thus does so obsessively, with stories that are as elaborate as possible, to keep his fellow villagers alive, all the while scarcely leaving his own room (reference). Like Scheherazade, he tells stories to prevent others from dying, especially when his estranged father falls ill. Day and night Zabor and his (imaginary) dog sit by his side (also in L: Cultural and Literary Heritage: Folktales: A Thousand and One Nights).
- Assia Djebber (written elsewhere as Assiya Jabbār, 1936 – 2015, Algeria) short story collection Oran, langue morte (1997, English trans. The Tongue’s Blood Does Not Run Dry, 2011) includes seven short stories focused on female characters. Some stories are on women dealing with death caused by the violence episodes of Algeria’s history. Other stories deal with Algerian women experiencing a return to Algeria after exile. In the title story, for example, an Algerian woman writes letters about her return to Oran for her aunt’s funeral, and how this trip makes her relive her mother’s murder during the war of independence in 1962 (reference).
- Majīb Ṭūbyā’s (1938 – 2022, Egypt) short story ‘al-Jāḥiẓūn’ (‘The bulge-eyed’) in the collection Khams Jarāʾid Lam Tuqraʾ (‘Five papers that were never read’, 1970), centers a protagonist who walks towards the banks of the Nile and notices the ‘Bulge-Eyed’ watching him (reference). He walks into the river, until he is totally covered, and starts to breath in water. Slowly, he tuns into a corpse and he utters the words “I am dead” (reference). The story continues as he is disintegrated, and swallowed by a fish that eventually caught, canned, and presented to the ‘Bulge-Eyed’ and his wife.
- Ṭāriq Imān (1977-, Egypt) – Ṣarīkh Abī (‘My father’s mausoleum’, 2013). Hero of this story is a mysterious boy who, 100 years after he died, lives in a fictional mausoleum in Egypt and impregnates one of the poor women, which results in the birth of his son (reference). The novel describes how the child grows up torn between his father’s holiness and his sullied mother, who was murdered right after his birth. The novel uses many surreal elements that make the hero and the reader confused, possibly a reflection of the turbulent times Egypt after the 2011 Arab Spring.
- Ashraf al-Khamāysī (1967-, Egypt) – Manāfī al-Rabb (‘God’s land of exile’, 2013). Ḥijazī, protagonist of this novel, is over 100 years old and works in the desert embalming corpses of animals. Fearing his own decomposition after he dreams that he only has three more days to live, he travels to visit a group of monks and inquire about the resurrection of Christ and what happens to Christians when they die (reference). Through the interactions and his search for immortality after death, different anecdotes from his life and that of the other characters are told (reference).
- Rachid Mimouni (1945 – 1955, Algeria) – Le Fleuve détourné (‘The diverted river’, 1982). The protagonist of this novel is heavily wounded and suffers from amnesia following a bombing by the French army during the Algerian war (reference). When, years later, his memory is recovered, he decides to return to his village, only to find his name on the local monument for the dead, while his wife and son are missing (reference). Left without an identity, he attempts to rectify the mistake and while doing so he discovers the extent of the political and social corruption which has taken hold of Algeria since independence (also in 1954 – 1962 French-Algerian War and Algerian Independence).
- Fātiḥah Murshīd (1958-, Morocco) – al-Ḥaq fī al-Raḥīl (‘The right to leave’, 2013). The Moroccan journalist Fuʾād and Moroccan Amazigh teacher Islān find each other and marry in London after which they decide to return to their native Agadir, where they settle and start a high-class restaurant. However, when Islān is diagnosed with cancer, Fuʾād asks a friend of his who is a doctor, to preform euthanasia. This friend refuses, adhering to the law and religious code of the country. Fuʾād takes the task upon himself leading, which leads to his arrest (reference) (also in D: Disabilities, Illness, and Disorders: Illness: Cancer).
- ʿAbd al-Ḥakīm Qāsim’s (1934 – 1990, Egypt) short story ‘Ḥikāyāt Ḥawla Ḥādith Ṣaghīr’ (‘Story about a small accident’). The ‘small accident’ in this short story is the death of a factory clerk in Cairo, and how it effects, to a more or lesser extent, each of the other characters in the novel, creating a fragment and complex picture of the diseased (reference). The story can be found in the collection al-Ẓunūn wa al-Ruʾuā (‘Thoughts and visions’, 1986).
- Farīd Ramaḍān (1961 – 2020, Bahrain) – al-Burzikh… Najmah fī Safr (‘Isthmus: a star on a journey’, 2018). This novel centres Sarah and her father, who works as a gravedigger. With each grave he digs, the story of the deceased is told. One example is that of the death of their neighbour, Sharīfah, who was working in the same profession. Sarah describes how she dies and the rituals of cleansing her body before burial. The novel explores the topic of death, and with it questions on what it means to be human.
- Taysīr Sabūl (1939 – 1973, Jordan) – Anta Munthu al-Yawm (‘You from today onward’, 1968). Following the defeat of 1967 (see 1967: al-Naksah), this satirical novel depicts the internal struggles of the main protagonist, ʿArabī (representing Arabs as a totality), through the description of four nightmares that are closely linked to death (reference). For example, in the first nightmare, ʿArabī falls from the roof and his body disappears into the asphalt of the street.
- Saʿadallah Wannūs (1941 – 1997, Syria) – ʿAn al-Dhākirah wa al-Mawt (‘On memory and death’, 1996). This literary work consists out of several short texts reflecting on illness, life, and death. They include a theatre play titled Bilād Aḍyaq min al-Ḥubb (‘A country narrower than love’), a text written in the form of a diary titled Dhākirat al-Nubuʾāt (‘Memories of the prophecies’) (see in D: Disabilities, Illness, and Disorders: Illnesses: Cancer), and a piece titled Riḥlah fī Majāhil Mawt ʿĀbir (‘Journey into the unknown of fleeting death’). The work is a diary, reflection, parody, drama, play, and methodology all at once, and the motif appearing in all parts is: flies (reference). Wannūs reflects on the daily experiences of flies and their relation towards humans, such as comparing a day in the life of humans, to the life of a fly which is lasts a day (also in N: Nature: Animals).
- Jūrj Yarqq (1958-, Lebanon) – Ḥāris al-Mawtā (‘Guard of the Dead’, 2015). The young ʿĀbir flees his village to Beirut and joins one of the militias during the Lebanese Civil War. He does not fight however, but instead starts working in the morgue of a hospital, while in the nights he operates a theatre. The hospital works based on material interests and the doctors only preform surgery on paying patients. ʿĀbir himself does with the corpses whatever he wants, including taking their golden teeth and selling them and almost fornicating a female corpse. One day, ʿĀbir is kidnapped, and to find out who did it, he relives his past (also in 1975 – 1982 Lebanese Civil War).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- David Kipen. 2014. “An Iraq Blasted Open, Sketched From the inside.” www.nytimes.com, 28 January, 2014, www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/books/the-corpse-exhibition-stories-about-a-war-torn-life.html (last accessed 3 March 2020)
- Ismail Slimani and Samira Bechelaghem. 2022. “Hybridité textuelle et altérité identitaire dans ‘Zabor ou les psaumes’ de Kamel Daoud.” Multilinguales 18, accessed through https://journals.openedition.org/multilinguales/9241 (last accessed 1 November 2023)
- Leonard R. Koos. 2007. “Djebar, Assia.The Tongue’s Blood Does Not Run Dry”. Translation Review, 73(1): 58–61, p. 59
- Céza Kassem Draz. 1981. “In Quest of New Narrative Forms: Irony in the Works of Four Egyptian Writers: Jamāl al-Ghīṭānī, Yaḥyā al-Ṭāhir ʿAbdallah, Majīd Ṭūbyā, Ṣunʿallah Ibrāhīm (1967-1979)”, in Journal of Arabic Literature (12): 137-159, p. 151, 152
- al-Kabīr al-Dādīsī. 2018. Masārāt al-riwāyah al-ʿarabiyyah al-muʿāṣirah, Muʾassah al-raḥāb al-ḥadīthah: Bayrūt, p. 73
- Raphael Cormack. 2014. “IPAF-Longlisted ‘God’s Land of Exile’: Shifting Perspectives on Death.” www.arablit.org, 22 January 2023, https://arablit.org/2014/01/22/ipaf-longlisted-gods-land-of-exile-shifting-perspectives-on-death/ (last accessed 14 November 2023)
- Maznah Kamāl. 2016. “Qirāʾah fī ‘Manāfī al-Rabb’ lil-Riwāʾī Ashraf al-Khamāysī.” www.thaqafat.com, 7 September 2016, https://thaqafat.com/2016/09/63544 (last accessed 14 November 2023)
- Nassim Bensahnoune. 2022. “Rachid Mimouni and ‘The Diverted River’.” www.dunemagazine.net, 20 April 2022, https://www.dunemagazine.net/eng-trans/rachid-mimouni-and-the-diverted-river (last accessed 14 February 2023)
- Seth Graebner. 2003 “Mimouni, Rachid”, in Encyclopaedia of African Literature. eds. Simon Gikandi, Routledge: New York, p. 460
- ʿAbd al- Qādir ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib. 2013. “‘al-Ḥaq fī al- Raḥīl’ lil-Riwāʾiyah Fātiḥah Murshīd: al- Hijrah Hijrāt Mutaʿaddidah” www.alquds.co.uk, 3 December 2013 https://www.alquds.co.uk/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D9%82-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%AD%D9%8A%D9%84-%D9%84%D9%84%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%A6%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D9%81%D8%A7%D8%AA%D8%AD%D8%A9-%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%B4%D9%8A%D8%AF-%D8%A7/ (last accessed 14 November 2021)
- Sabry Hafez and Catherine Cobham ed. 2011. A Reader of Modern Arabic Short Storis. Saqi Books: London, p. 166-7
- Khalīl al-Shaykh. 1997. Al-Intiḥār fī al-ʾAdab al-ʿArabī. Beirut: al-Markaz al-ʿArabīyya lil-dirāsāt wa- nashr al-Markaz al-Rʾīsī, p. 96
- Yazin al-Ḥājj. 2020. “Saʿadallah Wannūs… Thākirat Aqwā min al-Mawt.” www.al-akhbar.com, 16 May 2020, https://al-akhbar.com/Kalimat/288701 (last accessed 6 October 2021)