- Rūzā Yāsīn Ḥassan (1974-, Syria) – Ḥurrās al-Hawāʾ (‘The guards of the air’, 2009). This novel treats the socio-political environment of 1990s Syria and the effects on the families, particularly women, ‘left on the outside’ of Syrian prisons. More specifically, it tells the story of the pregnant ʿAnāt, who works as interpreter in the Canadian embassy, where she is constant witness to the horrors that those applying for asylum from mostly African countries describe, and her fiancé, who is imprisoned for spreading leftist pamphlets (reference) (also in M: Movement: (E) migration, Refugees and Return: Refugees in Arab countries).
- Yūsuf Idrīs (1927 – 1991, Egypt) – Al-ʿAskarī al-Aswad (‘The black policeman’, 1962). This novel focusses both on the effects of torture on the one torturing and being tortured (reference). The novel centres on two Egyptian friends, Shawqī and ʿAbbās, who both want to ameliorate the situation in Egypt after the World War II. Shawqi becomes a doctor, joins the Muslim Brotherhood, and is arrested during the period of Jamal Abdel Nasser’s regime. ʿAbbās becomes a soldier and interrogates and tortures his old friend Shawqī. After a period of several years, Shawqī works in a hospital and finds a file on ʿAbbās: he has become mentally ill. Shawqī does not offer help but enjoys the pain of ʿAbbās.
- Najīb Maḥfūẓ (1911 – 2006, Egypt) – al-Liṣṣ wa al-Kilāb (1961, English trans. The Thief and the Dogs, 1989). When the hero of this novel, Saʿīd Mahrān, is freed from prison after serving a sentence for theft, he sets out to avenge himself on his former wife and assistant. Saʿīd suspects them of having had a clandestine affair and of having snitched on him to the police. But he accidentally murders two innocent victims and finds refuge with a prostitute he knows. The story of Saʿīd is an example of that of a released prisoner who has trouble adapting to life outside of prison (reference).
- ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Munīf (1933 – 2004, Jordan / Saudi Arabia) – Sharq al-Mutawassiṭ (‘East of the Mediterranean’, 1977). Prefaced by the Declaration of Human Rights, this novel focuses on the physical and psychological horrors of torture (reference). Rajab is sentenced to eleven years prison after joining an illegal university. At first, he endures torture without renouncing his beliefs, but when his mother dies, the woman he loves abandons him, and he suffers from a rheumatic disorder, he signs a document of complete submission. He is forced to travel to Europe as a government informer, where instead he writes a novel on the atrocities he endured. He submits his novel to the Red Cross in Geneva before returning home where he is again arrested (reference).
- Laylā al-ʿUthmān’s (1943-, Kuwait) short story ‘al-Ruʾūs ilā Asfal’ (‘Heads Downwards’), in which a narrator tells the story of his rediscovery of the outside world after being imprisoned for eighteen years for murdering his wife after discovering she had had sexual relationships before marriage. His inability to adapt to the outside world, mingled with memories of his dysfunctional marriage, leads him to conclude that life was freer inside prison. The story can be found in al-Ḥubb la-hu Ṣuwar (‘Love has pictures’, 1983).
- Wahīd al-Ṭawīlah (?, Egypt) – Ḥiḏa’ Fīllīnī (‘Fellini’s Shoes’, 2016). After attending a mysterious conference organized by the country on issues of ‘national concern’, the narrator of this novel, the psychotherapist Muṭāʿ, is unjustly arrested and endlessly tortured at the hands of a hangman (reference). He is accused of having connections to the Italian film director Fellini. Although he is eventually released from prison, Muṭāʿ is unable to shed the scenes of torture, and describes his psychological state of being through a series of internal monologues.
- ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Shāwī (1950-, Morocco) – al-Sāḥah al-Sharafiyyah (‘The honorary square’, 1999). Written after the writer’s own prison experience, the narrator of this novel, Saʿd Ibrāhīm, describes how torture, isolation, and a monotonous life in the dark and humid prison cell effected his mental and physical health. It also describes the strategies he and other prisoners used to cope with those harsh conditions in an unnamed prison (reference). After his release, Saʿd settles in the fictional small village of Barāndah where he discovers how the villagers’ suffering from drought and water scarcity leads to the revival of old tribal conflicts (reference) (also in N: Nature: Drought).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Muḥammad al-Masʿūdī. 2020. “al-Wāqiʿa al-Siyāsiyyah/ al-Ijtimāʿī: Ḥudūd al-Mʾasāh wa al-Mulhāh fī ‘Ḥurrās al-Hawāʾ’ li-Rūzā Yāsīn Ḥassan.” Afkar 372 www.afkar.jo/View_ArticleAr.aspx?type=2&ID=3056 (last accessed 22 March 2023)
- David Tresilian. 2008. A Brief Introduction to Modern Arabic Literature. London: Saqi, p. 75
- Hilary Kilpatrick. 1992. “The Egyptian novel from Zaynab to 1980.” In Modern Arabic Literature. eds. Muḥammad Muṣṭafā Badawī. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 223-270, p. 256
- EAL, p. 551
- Ṣabry Hafiẓ. 2006. “An Arabian Master.” New Left Review 37: 39-66, p. 44-6
- Ḥanān al-Nabilī. 2017. “Bayt Riwāyat ‘ḤithāʾFīllīnī’.” www.alarabiya.net, 4 December 2017 https://www.alarabiya.net/qafilah/2017/12/04/%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%AA-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%AD%D8%B0%D8%A7%D8%A1-%D9%81%D9%8A%D9%84%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%86%D9%8A- (last accessed 26 October 2021)
- al-Kabīr al-Dādīsī. 2018. Masārāt al-riwāyah al-ʿarabiyyah al-muʿāṣirah, Muʾassah al-raḥāb al-ḥadīthah: Bayrūt, p. 185, 191, 193,