- Wāsīnī al-Arʿaj (1954-, Algeria) – May: Layālī Iyzīs Kūbiyyā (‘May: Nights of the Isis Copia’ 2018). This novel is based on the life of the Lebanese thinker, feminist, and writer May Ziadeh (1886 – 1941), who worked and lived in Egypt where she was famous among others for holding literary salons during the 1920s and 1930s. The novel describes the last phase of her life when she was admitted to a mental hospital by her nephew Joseph (though she herself claimed to be sane), including the injustice she was put through (reference).
- Khalīl Taqī al-Dīn (1906 – 1987, Lebanon) – al-ʿĀʾid (‘The returnee’, 1968). This short novel vividly involves the reader in the Druze believe of reincarnation. Its hero is Salmān, who is suddenly aware of the lives he had previously led, something he sees proven when he recognizes the woman who used to be his wife another life. The process of remembering his former selves, and the conflict this leads to between his body and mind, eventually causes his insanity and admission to a psychiatric hospital (reference) (also in M: Minorities: Druze).
- Fadia Faqir (1956-, Jordan) – Pillars of Salt (1996). Maha and Umm Sad share a room in a mental hospital in Jordan from the 1920s to the 1940s, during and after the British Mandate (reference). Although their relationship is filled with tension when they first meet, the novel depicts the developments of the women learning to co-exist and eventually become intimate friends. The two tell each other their stories, which become windows into the outside world depicting not only their experiences, but also Jordan under colonial rule (reference) (also in 1920 Partitioning of the Arab World into mandates: Partitioning of the Arab World into mandates: Transjordan).
- Aḥmad Murād (1978-, Egypt) – al-Fīl al-Azraq (‘The blue elephant’, 2012). The psychiatrist Yahyā returns to his job in the psychiatric hospital al-ʿAbbasiyyah, after five years of self-isolation following the death of his wife and daughter, to find that one of his friends and colleagues, Sharīf, is now his patient (reference). Sharīf has been accused of murdering his wife, and Yahyā is tasked with investigating and analyzing Sharīf’s case. The novel was made into a movie with the same title.
- Ghāzī al-Quṣaybī (1940 – 2010, Saudi Arabia) – al-ʿUṣfūriyya (‘Psychiatric hospital’, 1996). Set in ‘Arabistan’, this novel is a dialogue between the Saudi professor Bashshār and his doctor Samīr that takes place during one of their sessions in the ‘Usfuriyya’, a word used in the Lebanese dialect to describe a psychiatric hospital (reference). The professor finds himself in an existential crisis like the crisis that his country Arabistan is going through. Under the illusion that he is a great intellectual and writer, he refers to important Arabic writers (such as al-Muṭanabbi, Ṭaḥa Ḥusayn, and Aḥmad Shawqī) and offers solutions for the country’s ills which he bases in Arabic poetry and literature.
- Nawāl al-Saʿadāwī (1931 – 2021, Egypt) – Jannāt wa-Iblīs (1992, English trans. The innocence of the Devil, 1994). This novel depicts many facets of Egyptian culture, with the main thrust being that “religion is the underlying cause of women’s oppression” (reference). The novel portrays six characters in a psychiatric hospital: the asylum director, the head nurse, two female patients, and two male patients. This setting allows for mixing reality and fantasy, while the novel makes many theological references to highlight absurdity. One of the characters is the lesbian Narjūs (also in L: Love, Lust, and Relationships: LGBTQ+: Lesbian Relationships).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Ādil Al-Asṭah. 2022. “Wāsīnī al-Arʿaj fī Riwāyatihi al-Jadīdah ‘May: Layālī Iyzīs Kūbiyyā’.” www.alantologia.com 14 January 2022 https://alantologia.com/blogs/53428/ (last accessed 4 March 2023)
- Nasrīn Balūṭ. 2017. “Riwāyah ‘al-ʿĀʾid’… Aḥlām bayn al-Rūḥ wa al-Jasad.” www.alquds.co.uk May 2, 2017 https://www.alquds.co.uk/%EF%BB%BFرواية-العائد-أحلام-طائرة-بين-الرو/ (last accessed 4 July 2022)
- Pillars of Salt | website (fadiafaqir.com)
- Nadia Sinno. 2011. “From Confinement to Creativity: Women’s Reconfiguration of the Prison and Mental Asylum in Salwa Bakr’s ‘The Golden Chariot’ and Fadia Faqir’s ‘Pillars of Salt’.” JAL 42:67-94, p. 67
- Kamāl al-Riyāḥī. 2014. “’Al-Fīl al-Azraq’.. ʿAnf al-Mutakhayyil wa Suryāliyyah al-Ṣuwwar.” www.aljazeera.net, 10 January 2014, https://www.aljazeera.net/culture/2014/1/10/الفيل-الأزرق-عنف-المتخيل-وسريالية (last accessed 4 March 2023)
- Ḍiyāʾ al-Kaʿbī. 2016. “Tamthilīyāt al-junūn fī khaṭābghāzī al-quṣaybī al-riwāʾī, ‘al-ʿuṣfūriyyah’wa ‘ʾalzhāymar’ anmūthijan.” Al-Baḥrayn al-thaqāfiyyah23(86): 9-19, p. 12
- Connie Lamb. 2000. “Nawal el Saadawi: The Innocence of the Devil, trans. Sherif Hetata (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 32(4), 547-549, p. 547