- Jamāl al-Ghīṭānī (1945 – 2015, Egypt) – Waqāʾiʿ Ḥārat al-Zaʿfarānī (1979, English trans. The Zafarani Files, 2008). This novel portrays everyday life in a working-class Cairo quarter by using newspapers and official reports. The novel’s main themes include power, corruption, and coercion, embodied by the mysterious Shaykh ʿAṭiyya who uses his position to assert control as the alley suddenly succumbs to an epidemic of impotence (reference). The Shaykh himself seems to have cast a spell on the men. The novel breaks many taboos through its detailed description of its characters’ lives, including their bedroom escapades (reference) (also in C: Cities: Egypt: Cairo).
- Jihād Abū Ḥashīsh (1962-, Jordan) – Thʾib Allah (‘God’s wolf’, 2017). This novel takes place in Jordan in the 1970’s and portrays the criminal ʿAwwād, who is committed to his tribal structure. Among others, ʿAwwād joins the Palestine Liberation Organization and an extremist Islamic organization. But eventually he loses his testicles, and with it his manhood, in a series of hotel explosions (reference). His story portrays the violent side of tribal life in Jordan, the events leading up to Oslo (see 1993: Oslo Accord), and the connections between Palestine and Jordan (also in S: Social Issues and Societal Change: Tribes and Ethnicity).
- Yūsuf Idrīs’ (1927 – 1991, Egypt) short story ‘Abū Sayyid’ depicts Ramaḍān, a married man with masculine pride, who is suddenly affected with sexual impotence (reference). His starts a long search for a cure. All the while his wife remains beside him, despite his suggestion to divorce, for the benefit of their marriage and their son Sayyid (reference). But Ramaḍān’s obsession with his manhood leads him to neglect his son’s upbringing. The story can be found in the collection Arkhaṣ Layālī (1954, English trans. ‘The Cheapest Nights’ printed in several translated short story collections in 1957, 1989 and 2020).
- Ghassān Kanafānī (1936 – 1972, Palestine / Israel) – Rijāl fī al-Shams (1962, English trans. Men in the Sun, 1999). This novel is a portrayal of Arab attitudes towards Palestinians in the period before 1967 and the bleak Palestinian reality following the 1948 Nakbah. It includes two disabled people: Shafīqa, a minor character who lost a leg in the 1948 Nakbah and whom Marwan’s (one of the main characters) father marries because she owns a house, and Abū Khayzarān (who smuggles the three the main characters out of Palestine) who lost his manhood because an injury also inflicted in 1948. Both injuries can be read as a symbol for the Palestinians’ loss of their homeland and control over their own lives (reference) (also in M: Movement (E) migration, Refugees, and Return: Refugees in Arab Countries).
- Najīb Maḥfūẓ (1911 – 2006, Egypt) – al-Sarāb (1948, English trans. The Mirage, 2009). This novel portrays Kamīl, who grows up developing a Freudian mother-fixation to his pampering mother whom he even sleeps in the same bed with until he is 25. This fixation prevents him from developing a normal marital relationship: when he marries a teacher, he discovers he is impotent. He begins a sexual relationship with a prostitute, a relationship which outlasts his mother and his wife. The novel is one of the first attempts at treating the theme of sexual frustration without sensationalism (reference) (also in C: Children and Family Life: Parent and Child: Mother and Child).
- ʿĀliyyah Mamdūḥ (1944-, Iraq) – al-Tashahhī (‘Yearning’, 2007). This novel links the masculinity of the main protagonist quite literally to the invasion of Iraq by American troops. Sarmad, an Iraqi translator living in exile in Paris, discovers that his male sex is shrinking until he almost loses it completely (due to his weight gain) and that he has become impotent. The loss of his manhood is linked to Sarmad losing his homeland Iraq and any potential political role in it (reference) (also in 2003 – 2011 US-led Invasion of Iraq).
- Ṣalāḥ ʿAbd al-Ṣabūr’s (1931 – 1981, Egypt) play Laylā wa al-Majnūn (‘Layla and the Madman’, 1972). Set in a time of political oppression, this verse drama depicts Laylā who insists on being recognized in her bodily existence, whereas her lover, the revolutionary poet Saʿīd, is psychotic and practically impotent, as he is inhibited by his negative childhood memories (having frequently witnessed the ‘legitimate’ rape of his mother) (reference) (also 1952: Revolution in Egypt: Before the revolution).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- EAL, p. 253
- Will Evans. 2012. “The Zafarani Files.” www.rochester.edu June 12, 2012 https://www.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent/2012/06/20/the-zafarani-files-2/ (last accessed November 20, 2021)
- Khulūd Fawrānī Siriyah. 2016. “‘Thʾib Allah’ lil-Kātib Jihād Abū Ḥashīsh.” www.diwanalarab.com, 22 March 2016, https://www.diwanalarab.com/%D8%B0%D8%A6%D8%A8-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%D9%87-%D9%84%D9%84%D9%83%D8%A7%D8%AA%D8%A8-%D8%AC%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%AF-%D8%A3%D8%A8%D9%88-%D8%AD%D8%B4%D9%8A%D8%B4 (last accessed 6 July 2023)
- Saad Elkhadem. 1990. “Youssef Idris and His Gay ‘Leader of Men’.” The International Fiction Review 17(1): 25-28, p. 26
- Zaynib al-ʿAsāl. 2020. “Yūsuf Idrīss .. al-Inhiyāz lil-Imrāʾah.” www.africanoalthakafe.com, 14 August 2020 http://africanoalthakafe.com/site/index.php?go=article&more=203 (last accessed 11 August 2021)
Nadine Sinno. 2017. “Crushing the Bones of the Other: Disability, Ethnicity, and Homosexuality in Rashid al-Daif’s ‘Sikirida’s Cat’ and Alexandra Chreiteh’s ‘Ali and his Russian Mother’.” Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 58(3): 258-275, p. 262
Abir Hamdar. 2014. The Female Suffering Body: Illness and Disability in Modern Arabic Literature. Syracuse UP: New York, p. 40
- 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. 242
- Hanadi al- Samman. 2008. “Out of the Closet: Representation of Homosexuals and Lesbians in Modern Arabic Literature.” JAL39: 270-310, p. 308-9
- Asʿad E. Khairallah. 1995. “Love and the Body in Modern Arabic Poetry.” in Love and Sexuality in Modern Arabic Literature. eds. Roger Allen, Hilary Kilpatrick, and Ed de Moor. London: Saqi Books, 210- 223, p. 212