Being the converse of utopia, dystopia depicts the seeming impossibility of utopia and the many failures to create it (reference). The Arabic dystopian novel often portrays the (near) future to depict the present in an alternative setting.
- Wāsīnī al-Arʿaj (1954-, Algeria) – al-Makhṭuṭah al-Sharqīyyah (‘The Eastern manuscript’, 2002), the second part of the two volume Fājiʿat Al-Laylah al-Sābiʿah Baʿda al-Alf – Raml al-Māyah (‘The disaster of the thousand and seventh night – the sand of a hundred’, 1993, see for the first part L: Cultural and Literary Heritage: Folktales: One Thousand and One Nights), and Ḥikāyat al-ʿArabī al-Akhīr 2084 (‘Tale of the last Arab’, 2015).
al-Makhṭuṭah al-Sharqīyyah takes place over a period of 1000 years and can be read as a reflection on the political relationship between the West and the Arab world (reference). Its hero is the little prince Nūḥ, who lives in exile after being saved by the American anthropologist Uskār when his father was murdered and his country was destroyed by invaders. After 50 years of waiting, Nūḥ finally returns to his now dystopian homeland with the task of restoring it, under the supervision of Uskār (reference). The novel also refers to other literary works such as Munīf’s Mudun al-Miliḥ and Ibn Khaldūn’s Muqaddimah.
Ḥikāyat al-ʿArabī al-Akhīr 2084 is set 100 years after Orwell’s 1984 when Ādam, a nuclear scientist, is the only Arab still living on earth. He is kidnapped and made a prisoner in the castle called Amīrūbia (a contraction of the Arabic words for America and Europe), located in the al-rubʿa al-khāli desert in Saudi Arabia. This castle is the headquarter of ‘the big brother’ who controls all the oil fields and who orders Ādam to invent a nuclear hand grenade (reference).
- Muḥammad Bābā Walid Ashfagh (?, Mauritania) – Wādī al-Naʿām (‘Ostrich Valley’, 2007). This novel is set in 2030 and predicts the future of Mauritania. It’s story takes place in Wādī al-Naʿām, a remote, desolate village in the countryside, where Chinese relocating the inhabitants to take advantage of its resources and Americans looking for a place to bury their toxic waste (reference). As local tribesmen try to deal with the foreign invaders, Aḥmad Walid, descendent of the poorest of tribes, climes to wealth by taking advantage of everyone and everything, until Mauritania is threated by a flood (also in N: Nature: Extraction).
- Basmah ʿAbd al-ʿAziz (1976-, Egypt) – al-Ṭabbūr (2013, English trans. The Queue, 2016). This novel takes place in a fictional country in which every movement needs the authorization of the government. It reflects on bureaucracy and totalitarianism, while the queue in front of ‘the Gate’, which authorizes the citizen’s requests, itself transforms into its own little society. The Gate, which is closed most of the time, comes to represent “a regime that represses people, determines their behavior, turns them into identical copies of one another, and strips them of their will” (reference). The novel’s hero is a man queueing to get the permission to get a bullet removed that is lodged in his body (also in G: Dysfunctional Governance: Government (bureaucracy) and the individual).
- ʿAzzaldīn Shukrī Fashīr (1966-, Egypt) – Asfār al-Farāʿīn (‘Pharaonic journeys’, 1999). Set in an imaginary apocalyptic Egypt, this novel weaves together the stories of nine characters trapped in an endless journey inside and outside of Egypt, as they try to flee from their miserable circumstances. The novel is a depiction of Egypt before the January 25 revolution.
- Buthaynah al-ʿĪssā (1982-, Kuwait) – Ḥāris Saṭaḥ al-ʿĀlim (‘Guard of the surface of the world’, 2019). This novel is set in a dystopia future where creativity and imagination are forbidden by a dictatorial government. The job of its hero is to read novels to determine if these contradict any of the authorities’ rules. His daughter, however, is stuck in the illegal world of imagination and has a zest for fantastical stories. The hero himself too, under the influence of his daughter and the forbidden novels that he reads, becomes a fervent reader (reference).
- Aḥmad Nājī (1985-, Egypt) – Istikhdām al-Ḥayāh (2014, English trans. The Use of Life, 2017). A dystopian graphic novel, illustrated by Ayman al-Zarqānī, that revolves around the 46-year-old hero Bassām who looks back at his youth in Cairo before it was wiped out by a series of natural disasters. The young Bassām is a filmmaker shooting a documentary about Cairo that sparks a discussion about the future of the city. The novel depicts the crude life of youngsters, filled with drugs, alcohol, and sex, but is also a story of love and friendship (reference). The author was the first since the 2011 uprisings to receive a prison sentence for his explicit sexual language and scenes in the novel (also in C: Cities: Cairo).
- Ibrāhīm Naṣrallah (1954-, Jordan / Palestine) – Ḥarb al-Kalb al-Thāniyya (‘Second war of the dog’, 2016). This novel is set in an unnamed Arab country that is controlled by the totalitarian ‘fort’. After the First War of the Dog, which erupted from differences within society, people start to look more and more alike and the similarities within society eventually lead to the Second War of the Dog (reference). Its hero, Rashīd, while at first an opponent to the fort, becomes materialistic extremist profiting from violence. This novel, which thus aims to portray the human tendency to violence, won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2018.
- Aḥmad Khalid Tawfīq (1962-2018, Egypt) – Ūtūbīa (2008, English trans. Utopia, 2010). Set in 2023, this novel portrays the present-day cultural environment in future Egypt (at the time of writing) where society is divided in two separate territories: the US Marine-protected colony land of the rich, Utopia, and the land of the poor ‘Others’. The main protagonist of the story leaves Utopia with his girlfriend in search of adventure but needs to be rescued in the land of poor by the second protagonist, Jābir (reference).
- Samīr Qasīmī (1974-, Algeria) – Salālim Trūllār (‘The stairs of Trollar’, 2019). This novel takes place in an unnamed country that resembles contemporary Algeria, and depicts a society made up of classes of programmed citizens. Strange things start happening in this society, such as all the doors and windows disappearing from the city. The novel can be read as a criticism of class structures in Algerian society (reference).
- Muḥammad Rabiaʿ (1978-, Egypt) – ʿUṭārid (2014, English trans. Otared, 2016). Otared is set in 2025 and brings the horrors of a city-leveling war to Egypt, recalling the country’s histories of invasion, occupation, and rebellion through a hideously violent Cairo-of-the-future, divided between the invading forces of the ‘Knights of Malta’ and a fractious resistance of former police officers and narrated by member of the officers, the former cop Aḥmad ʿUṭārid (reference).
- Boualem Sansal (1949-, Algeria) – 2084 la fin du monde (2015, English trans. 2084: The End of the World, 2017). Set in an unknown future country called Abistan, that is ruled by a religious body headed by ‘the Great Commander’ (reference). People who suffer from tuberculosis are isolated in sanatoria from the rest of the country. One of them is the hero of this novel, who, during his two-years stay, makes strange discoveries. When he returns, he investigates the matter with a friend.
- Saʿūd al-Sanʿūsī (1981-, Kuwait) – Firān Ummī Ḥiṣṣah (2015, English trans. Mama Hissa’s Mice, 2019). In Kuwait of the year 2020, a time in which the country is disrupted by sectarian violence, Katkout and his friends Fahd and Ṣadīq are part of a protest group called Faudā’s kids (reference). The novel is divided between the Katkout’s present and his early childhood in the 1980s which is described by his own novel, ‘Ithr al-Nār’ (‘The Inheritance of Fire’), such as hearing Fahd’s grandmother Mama Hissa’s stories and experiencing the Gulf War. Similar to Katkout’s publisher censoring his novel in the storyline, Mama Hissa’s Mice was banned in Kuwait for several years (also in C: Cities: Kuwait: Kuwait).
- Ṭālib ʿUmrān (1948- , Syria) – al-Azmān al-Muẓlima (‘Dark times’, 2003). Set in 2025, this novel describes a dark outlook on the future of the Arab world which is controlled by a global Western junta that humiliates and oppresses the Arab citizen (reference). In this world, Bītar, a Western doctor, tries to save Qāssim from being a guinea pig for immoral biological experiments in one of the authority’s prisons. The novel can be read as a criticism of the post-September 11 attack on the Arab world, in which the hunt for terrorists leads to extremism and strong opposition, pushing the world into a violent vicious cycle (also in 2001 9/11 Twin Tower Attacks).
- Aḥmad al- Zaʿatarī (?, Jordan) – al-Inḥināʾ ʿalā Juthat ʿAmmān (‘Bending over the corpse of Amman’, 2014). This novel portrays the dystopian demise of the city Amman, Jordan, after protests like those of the Arab uprisings in 2011 lead to a civil war and harsh oppression by government forces (reference). The text is written as a series of letters that the hero of the novel, who partakes in the initial protests, writes to his friend abroad. The novel was banned in Jordan (reference).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
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