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- Tawfīq al-Ḥakīm (1898 – 1987, Egypt) wrote several plays in both the Egyptian dialect (ʿāmiyyah) and in a ‘third language’, a mix between fuṣḥā and the Egyptian dialect which attempted to solve the dilemma of classical versus colloquial Arabic (reference). His play al-Ṣafqah (‘The deal’, 1956), for examples, is written in the ‘third language’. It addresses the theme of land ownership and the exploitation of poor peasant farmers (see for more information in V: Village and Rural Life).
- Yūsuf Idrīs (1927 – 1991, Egypt) often incorporates the Egyptian dialect in his writing. Take for example his short story collection Arkhaṣ Layālī (1954, English trans. ‘The Cheapest Nights’ printed in several translated short story collections in 1957, 1989 and 2020). The title story of the collection, ‘Arkhaṣ Layālī’, is set in a rural Delta village in Egypt and centers ʿAbd al- Karīm, who, looking for a way to kill his boredom and poverty, resorts to sleeping with his wife, which in turn leads to numerous children who, together with the other children resulting from boredom, overflow not only the village, but the country (reference) (also in V: Village and Rural Life).
- ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sharqāwi (1921 – 1987, Egypt) – al-Arḍ (1954, English trans. Egyptian Earth, 1962). Written in the Egyptian dialect, this novel is set in early 1930s Egypt during the dictatorship of Ṣidqī and describes the attempt by a local landowner to deprive villagers of the water needed for irrigation and to build a new road across the peasant’s land (reference). The villagers of the Delta try to resist but are by no means united as they quarrel over sharing the available water and compete for the hand of the village beauty. The novel expresses the tensions existent between the villagers’ and the central government and portrays the different village types, including their use of dialect (reference) (also V: Village and Rural life).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- EAL, p. 264
- Frédérick Lagrange. 2016. “Le désir de la langue chez Yūsuf Idrīs” in La Littérature Arabe Dialectale: Un Partimoine Vivant, eds. Sobhi Boustani and Marie-Aimée Germanos, Karthala: Paris, pp. 29-73, p. 46
- EAL, p. 707
- Hilary Kilpatrick. 1992. “The Egyptian novel from Zaynab to 1980.” In Modern Arabic Literature. eds. Muhammad Mustafa Badawi. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 223-270, p. 250