- Fādi ʿAzzām (1973-, Syria) – Sarmadah (2011, English trans. Sarmada, 2012). This novel traces the lives of three Druze women living in Syria’s mountainous area. Its narrator is the cosmopolitan Rafi, who lives in Paris where he meets a woman who claims to have the soul of a dead Druze woman from Sarmada, his hometown, in her body. The woman has died a brutal death at the hands of her brothers. Rafi goes to Sarmada to investigate the story, and the novel takes on a surreal and explicit tone, while also describing the history and culture of the Druze, as well as “how the members of a small, geographically concentrated sect can reconcile the effects of modern Syria and Arab conflicts (…) with the traditional beliefs and culture of their community” (reference).
- Khalīl Taqī al-Dīn (1906 – 1987, Lebanon) – al-ʿĀʾid (‘The returnee’, 1968). This short novel vividly involves the reader in the Druze believe of reincarnation. Its hero is Salmān, who is suddenly aware of the lives he had previously led, something he sees proven when he recognizes the woman who used to be his wife another life. The process of remembering his former selves, and the conflict this leads to between his body and mind, eventually causes his insanity and admission to a psychiatric hospital (reference) (also in D: Disabilities, Illness, and Disorders: Psychological Disorders: Psychiatric hospitals).
- Imān Ḥumaydān Yūnis (1956-, Lebanon) – Tūt Birrī (2001, English trans. Wild Mulberries, 2010). A coming-of-age story of a young girl, Sārah, living in Lebanon in the 1930s in a Druze village, ʿAyn Ṭahūn, where mulberry silkworms are massively produced. It depicts the decline of the long-standing silk industry “as a trope for the putrefaction of the nation’s traditional ideals” (reference). Sārah, having been raised by a shaykh and an aunt, takes the reader on a quest to find her mother, through which the novel portrays the feminine world of the Druze (also in O: Occupations, Professions and Hobbies: Fabrics).
- Rabīʿa Jābir (1972-, Lebanon) – Drūz Bilgharād: Ḥikāyat Ḥannā Yaʿqūb (‘The Druze of Belgrade: the story of Hannah Yaqub’, 2010). This historical novel, which is based on real facts, describes the expulsion of 550 Druze fighters to Belgrade following the civil war in Mount Lebanon (1860). As a future exchange for a fellow fighter, they take with them Ḥannā Yaʿqūb, a Christian man from Beirut who sells eggs and was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time (reference). The novel follows the Druze’s suffering on their difficult trip through the Balkans, which made them see Ḥannā, who started out as their enemy, as a part of their community (reference). The novel won the International Prize for Arabic Literature in 2012 (also in 1860 Mount Lebanon Civil War).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Alexia Nader. 2011. “‘Sarmada’: The Essential Novel of the Syrian Spring.” www.newyorker.com, 6 December 2011 https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/sarmada-the-essential-novel-of-the-syrian-spring (last accessed 4 July 2022)
- Nasrīn Balūṭ. 2017. “Riwāyah ‘al-ʿĀʾid’… Aḥlām bayn al-Rūḥ wa al-Jasad.” www.alquds.co.uk, 2 May 2017 https://www.alquds.co.uk/%EF%BB%BFرواية-العائد-أحلام-طائرة-بين-الرو/ (last accessed 4 July 2022)
- Yasmine Khayyat. 2008. “Younes Humaydan, Iman, ‘Wild Mulberries’. Translated from the Arabic by Michelle Hartman.” JAL 39: 311-320, p. 318
- al-Kabīr al-Dādīsī. 2018. Masārāt al-riwāyah al-ʿarabiyyah al-muʿāṣirah, Muʾassah al-raḥāb al-ḥadīthah: Bayrūt, p. 172, 175