- Yāsīn ʿAdnān (1970-, Morocco) – Hūt Mārūk (2016, English trans. Hot Maroc, 2021). A comedy, this novel paints a detailed picture of contemporary Moroccan society through the anonymous blog of its main character who describes the changes taking place around him. Among others, he describes the student movements of the university of Marrakesh and criticizes Moroccan’s intellectuals and politicians, all of whom the novel gives animalistic traits and names, including the hero himself: Raḥḥāl the squirrel (reference). The novel describes the affects the development of internet and the spread of social media had on Moroccan society at large (see also in C: Cities: Morocco: Marrakesh and L: Language and Dialects: Dialects: Moroccan dialect).
- Jalāl Barjas (1970-, Jordan) – Sabbidāt al-Ḥawās al-Khams (‘Women of the five senses’, 2017). After the Jordanian painter Sarāj, born with six senses, witnesses the attack on the Twin Tower and ten years later the eruption of the Arab Spring, he decides to return to Jordan and open an art gallery in Amman dedicated to the five human senses. This is his answer to the corruption and materialism he sees around him, including that of religious leaders who use everything in their power to achieve their own interests at the expense of others (reference). Soon, however, several women start to mysteriously disappear from the city, causing confusion and panic. The novel is made up of 6 chapters, each dedicated to a sense and to the story of a female character (also in O: Occupations, Professions and Hobbies: Arts).
- Rachid Boudjedra (written elsewhere as Rashīd Būjdirah, 1941-, Algeria) – Les 1001 Années de la nostalgie (‘1001 years of nostalgia’, 1979). This novel is a satire of the imaginary Algerian Saharan village of Manama which is confronted with an American film company, symbolic for American cultural imperialism, wanting to make a film adaption of One Thousand and One Nights. When the confrontation between the film-crew and the inhabitants erupts into violence, the scenes are used for the movie. The main protagonist of the novel is an only child in a family of nine sets of twins and spends much time looking for the house in Manama where historian Ibn Khaldun presumably wrote his important work (reference) (also in O: Occupations, Professions and Hobbies: Cinema and L: Cultural and Literary Heritage: Folktales: A Thousand and One Nights).
- Ḥassan Dāwūd (1950-, Lebanon) – Sanat al-Ūtūmātīk (1996, English trans. The Year of the Revolutionary New Bread-making Machine, 2007). Set in Lebanon in the 1960, this novel reflects on a society in which the métier of the old skilled labour class becomes useless due to mechanization, and the young middle class, who has lost touch with artisan work and workers, are not given the opportunities that a university degree should offer them (reference).
- Ṣubḥī Faḥmāwī (1948- , Palestine / Israel) – al-Ḥubb fī Zaman al-ʿAwlamah (‘Love in times of Globalization’, 2006). This novel portrays love in the age of globalization not as being between people, but between people and their materialistic interests, and authority not being centered in politics, but in companies (reference). It is set in a city called ‘City of Globalism’ and depicts the life of the superficial billionaire Sāʾid al-Shuwāwī, who owes his business-success to globalization. After his marriage to the daughter of a rich bank owner and becoming a manager at the bank, he consistently favors his own companies before things eventually turn to the worse.
- Ṣunʿallāh Ibrāhīm (1937 – 2025, Egypt) – Dhāt (1992, English trans. Zaat, 2004). This novel treats the topic of consumerism in the commercialized Egypt of the 1980s and 1990s (reference). Its protagonist, Dhāt, works a mundane and repetitive job in a newspaper archive during the subsequent regimes of Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak. Egypt consumerism and commercialization, and consequently the Egyptian individual’s sense of alienation from environment and the self, can be read in the news clippings that Dhāt catalogues for her job (reference).
- Rachid Mimouni (1945 – 1995, Algeria) – L’Honneur de la tribu (1989, English trans. The Honor of the Tribe, 2008). Narrated by an old man, this novel uses fables and legends to shed light on life in Algeria in an era of colonization and modernisation (reference). It tells the story of Omar El Mabrouk, a child who was believed to have died during the liberation struggle, but who appears as a provincial prefect in the minuscule village of Zitouna, where he implements a ‘modernization’ plan that includes ripping out the town’s eucalyptus trees to make way for soulless buildings. The novel reflects on the invasion of technology into the world of the tribe space, and its subsequent break-up (reference) (also in N: Nature: Extraction).
- Chams Nadir’s (pseudonym for Mohammed Aziza, 1949-, Tunisia) collection of short stories L’Astrolabe de la mer (1980, English trans. Astrolabe of the Sea, 1996) criticizes Western materialist values.
- Mikkāwī Saʿīd (1956 – 2017, Egypt) – Taghrīdah al-Bajaʿa (‘Pelican’s tweet’, 2007). This novel focusses on the social changes in Egypt in the period from 1952 until 1982. Through Muṣṭafā, an Arabic-language teacher, several characters are introduced who frequent a café in the middle of Cairo (reference). Each has their own crises and dreams that are crushed by reality, and each deal with these differently. Aḥmad, the radical leftist, for example, becomes an Islamist. Muṣṭafā himself criticizes the Egyptian society and believes that globalization and the mix of cultures is the reason for the disappearance of the Egyptian middle-class.
- Alīksandrā Shrīhiḥ (1987-, Lebanon / Russia) – Dāyman Kūkākūlā (2009, English trans. Always Coca-Cola, 2012). This novel centers on the theme of globalization and its repercussions on the city of Beirut and its residents in the period of (temporary) peace after the Lebanese Civil War (reference). The novel follows three young women who navigate through the tensions between tradition and modernity caused by globalization’s products and symbols (also in L: Love, Lust and Relationships: LGBTQ+: Transgender).
- Maḥmūd Shuqayr (1941-, Palestine) – Sūrat Shākīrā (‘Shakira’s image’, 2003). This ironic collection of short stories, which uses both the local Arabic dialect and Hebrew, critiques the misrepresentation and manipulation of the Palestinian narrative as well as globalization and superficial consumer culture that distracts young generations from real and pressing issues (reference). In its title short story, the protagonist, Ṭalḥah Shukīrāt, who lives in Jerusalem, claims a familial relationship with the pop singer Shakira (who he calls Shukriyyah) in an attempt to gain favour with the Israeli soldier Rūnī and bypass the long queues in front of the Interior Ministry (reference). Shakira herself has no voice, she exists as symbolic value admired by Rūnī and used opportunistically by the characters. Other famous individuals are referenced in the other stories, such as in ‘Ibnat khālatī Kūndūlīzā’ (‘My cousin Condoleezza’) (also in I: Israel and Palestine: Palestinians in Israel).
- ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Surayyʿi’s (1939-, Kuwait) play Fulūs wa Nufūs (‘Money and souls’, 1970) in which a whole family breaks up after the father, who used to be honest and content with his life, gains a large sum of money after selling his house to the government. He becomes a different man, gets himself an imported bride, and stands in defiance against his family, accusing them of stealing.
- Saʿdallah Wannūs (1941 – 1997, Syria) – Malḥamāt al-Sarāb (‘The Mirage Epic’, 1995). This allegorical play criticizes globalization and capitalism through the sudden urbanization of a poor village (reference). ʿAbbūd al-Ghāwī returns to his hometown to buy off farmers lands and, motivated by material gain, builds a fancy tourist center with the support of the government, to the detriment of the conditions of the villagers, who end up impoverished while their rural, traditional lifestyle is destroyed (reference).
- Mīkhāʾīl Naʿīmah’s (1889 – 1988, Lebanon) short story ‘ʿUlbat Kabrīt’ (‘A Matchbox’) from the collection Akābir (‘The most respected’, 1956). In this short story, the friend of the narrator tells him two stories through which he portrays the materialism of the West and the generosity in the East.
- Ḥabīb ʿAbd al-Rab Surūrī (1956-, Yemen) – Ḥafīd Sindibād (‘Grandchild of Sindibad’, 2016). A Yemeni IT-student in Paris finds a laptop on the street. He takes it home to unravel the story of the previous owner, the main character of the novel and also an IT-student. This person, the Moroccan Nādir al-Gharīb, travelled the world with the laptop and noted everything he saw (reference). Through Nādir’s story the novel sheds light on the psychological ramifications of living ever-so closely with technology and travelling from city to city in a globalized world.
Refrences:
In order of appearance
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- Samar Zahrawi. 2016. “‘The Mirage Epic’: Sadallah Wannous’ Allegory of Colonial Globalization.” Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Special Issue on Literature 4: 153-161, p. 153, 154
- Hāshim Shafīq. 2017. “Ḥabīb ʿAbd al-Rab Surūrī fī ‘Ḥafīd Sindibād’: Asfār wa Istikshafāt fī Riwāyah.” www.alquds.co.uk, 9 September 2017 https://www.alquds.co.uk/%EF%BB%BF%D8%AD%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A8-%D8%B9%D8%A8%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%A8-%D8%B3%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%AD%D9%81%D9%8A%D8%AF-%D8%B3%D9%86%D8%AF%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%AF/ (last accessed 12 December 2019)