- Luwīs ʿAwaḍ (1915 – 1990, Egypt) – Mudhakkirāt Ṭālib Baʿthah (‘Memoirs of a Scholarship Student’, 1965). Written in the Egyptian dialect, this memoir describes the author’s experiences during his master’s studies in Cambridge, England, in the 1930s and 1940s. Among others, he describes his relationship with English fellow students, who at times held orientalist views on Egyptians, and his Egyptian group of friends (also in O: Occupations, Professions and Hobbies: University Life: Academics and Students).
- Waguih Ghali (1920 – 1969, Egypt) – Beer in the Snooker Club (1964). This novel is partly a coming-of-age story about a young Egyptian man on his first visit to Europe, partly a meditation on Egyptian social transformations following Nasser’s 1952 coup d’état that put an end to the Egyptian monarchy and British colonial rule (reference). An Egyptian student goes to England and when he returns, he is in deep crisis because he is deeply drawn to England while at the same time repulsed by it.
- Yahya Ḥaqqi (1905 – 1992, Egypt) – Qindīl Umm Hāshim (1944, English trans. The Lamp of Umm Hashim, 2006). Ismāʿīl is brought up in a traditional Muslim family in Cairo. Growing up, he witnesses crowds of worshippers seeking the blessing of Saint Umm Hāshim in the nearby mosque. Ismāʿīl goes to England to become an eye doctor after engaging Fāṭīma, but meets Marī, an English student who leads him into a world of love and lust. Upon return he is disappointed by his family’s dependence on the saint when treating Fāṭima’s illness. He decides to treat the eyes himself, but at the same time starts to re-sympathize with the Egyptian tradition and religion (reference) (also in F: Family Life: Children and Adolescents: Arabic Bildungsroman and S: Social Issues and Societal Changes: Between Tradition and Modernity).
- al-Ṭayyib al-Ṣalīḥ (1929 – 2009, Sudan) – Mawsim al-Hijrah ilā al-Shamāl (1966, English trans. Season of migration to the North, 1969). This novel breaks away from previous romantic literature on the West by depicting the North-South encounter as one of conflict, violence, and aggression. Muṣṭafā Saʿīd, the Sudanese hero of the novel, comes from a small village and moves to England to study before he returns to the Sudanese village life. During his years in England, he teaches at a British university and becomes part of the Western culture. At the same time, he has a private political agenda which is revenging colonialism by exploiting his exoticism though a series of destructive relationships with British women (reference) (also in: L: Love, Lust, and Relationships: Inter-religious and ethnic (romantic) relationships: Between Arabs and Westerners).
- Ḥanān al-Shaykh (1945-, Lebanon) – Innaha Lundun yā ʿAzīzī (2000, English trans. Only in London, 2002). Four strangers traveling from Lebanon to London meet on the plane. Two of them, Lāmis, a 30-year-old divorcee, and Nikūlās, an English expert on Islamic art, fall in love. The third, Amīr reinvents herself as a princess while the fourth, Samīr, chases after young British men (also in L: Love, Lust, and Relationships: LGBTQ+: Male Homosexuality). The novel depicts how Arab migrants enjoy the freedoms that the city of London offers while also describing the relationship between East and West on a personal and societal level (reference).
- Ahdaf Soueif (1950-, Egypt) – In the Eye of the Sun (1992). At the centre of this novel is Asya al-Ulama, a woman of the Egyptian bourgeois class who travels to England with her husband Saif, to write her dissertation on linguistics (reference). In England, she has an affair with an Englishman, Gerald Stone, and eventually divorces Saif before returning to Egypt, to teach at the University of Cairo. Her story is intertwined with political developments in Egypt and the Arab World from 1967 to 1980 (reference) (also in O: Occupations, Professions and Hobbies: University Life: Academics and Students).
- Shadha al-Khaṭīb (1975-, Yemen) – Sanawāt al-Walah (‘Years of unthoughtfulness’, 2017). Set it London, this novel centers migrants from Yemen, Libya, Iraq, and other regional countries living in London. The novel describes their daily contact and the social and political issues they discuss, such as problems of migration, love stories, and political issues. An example of this latter is the 1986 Civil War in the South of Yemen, and the current Yemen Civil War (reference).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Anna Ziajka Staton. 2015. “A Whole Imaginary World.” JAL 46: 244-267
- Issa J. Boullata. 1976. “Encounter between East and West: A Theme in Contemporary Arabic Novels.” MEJ 30(1): 49-62, p. 50-3
- Nedal M. Al- Mousa. 1993. “The Arabic Bildungsroman: A Generic Appraisal.” IJMES 25 (2): 223-240, p. 233
- Samīr al-Yūsif. 2004. “‘Innaha Lundan yā ʿAzīzī’ Riwāyah Ḥanān al-Shaykh al-Jadīdah Inʿidām Rʾuyat Yuntaj Bināʾan Mufakikan wa Sardan Qāṣiran.” www.elaph.com, 1 April 2004, https://elaph.com/Web/Archive/983123916551400300.htm (last accessed 6 December 2023)
- Amin Malak. 2000. “Arab-Muslim Feminism and the Narrative of Hybridity: The Fiction of Ahdaf Soueif.” AJCP 20: 140-183
- Nada Ayad. 2016. “The Politics of Foreignizing and Domesticating English in Ahdaf Soueif’s ‘In the Eye of the Sun’.” Translation Review 95(1): 55-66 p. 55
- Osama Ali, Fadhilah Gubari, Julia Gurol, and Abdelsalam al-Rubaidi. 2022. “Narratives of (In)Justice in Contemporary Yemeni Novels: Representations of Socio-Political Practices and Normative Constructions.” CARPO Study no. 11, 22 March 2022, p. 8, retrieved from https://carpo-bonn.org/en/narratives-of-injustice-in-contemporary-yemeni-novels/ (last accessed 6 May 2023)