- Wajdī al-Ahdal (1973-, Yemen) – Arḍ al-Muʾāmirāt al-Saʿīdah (‘Happy land of plots’, 2018). This novel tells the story of a girl who is raped, and subsequently found guilty of sexual deviance. Its hero, the journalist Muṭahhir, is given the task to preserve the good name of a powerful man related to the authorities who are accused of the deed (reference). The novel is set in al-Hudayda and Sanaʿa before the Arab Spring reached Yemen, and the describes the harsh daily realities in the two cities where the 2011 protests erupted as well as the relationship between journalism and power (reference) (also in 2011: Arab Uprisings: Yemen).
- Muhammad ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn (1979-, Egypt) – Injīl Ādam (‘The Gospel according to Adam’, 2006). A young man with an obsessive character walks around the streets of Cairo and sees a succulent girl. He becomes her stalker and fantasizes about seducing, raping, and murdering her, but also about loving and cherishing her (reference). The novel describes his thoughts, as he fantasies taking on different roles and imagines her in different characters.
- Ṣunʿallāh Ibrāhīm (1937 – 2025, Egypt) – Sharaf (‘Honor’, 1997). The poor, young Egyptian Sharaf sees his city Cairo overflow with Western products that he is unable to obtain. One day, he is looking at a movie poster with Arnold Schwarzenegger when he encounters the Australian Jūn, who insists on seeing the movie together eventually inviting Sharaf to his apartment. There Jūn attempts to rape Sharaf, who defends himself, a move that ends with Jūn’s death and his own imprisonment, where he is again humiliated and subjected to rape (reference) (also in L: Love, Lust, and Relationships: Inter-religious and ethnic (romantic) relationships: Between Arabs and Westerners).
- ʿAbduh Khāl (1962-, Saudi Arabia) – Tarmī Bisharar (‘Throwing sparks’, 2010). This novel, which won International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2010, paints a gloomy picture of the city of Jedda, Saudi Arabia, through the eyes of an employee, Ṭāriq Fāḍil, of one of the city’s palaces owned by a rich businessman. Amongst his observations is the constant sexual humiliation and raping of the palace’s servants and the competitors of the businessman. One of his own tasks is to rape the competitors while the businessman himself films everything that takes place (reference). The palace is thus made into a private torture house which is in turn symbolic for the increase of corruption and evil introduced to the city with the arrival of the rich (reference).
- Ilyās Khūrī (1948-, Lebanon) – Yālū (2002, English trans. Yalo, 2004). This novel is a coming-of-age story in war-torn Beirut. Its hero, Yālū, joins a militia before stealing money and fleeing to Paris with a friend. There, he is scouted by a Lebanese arms dealer who takes him back to guard his family home in Lebanon (reference). Not completely satisfied with his romantic life and affair with the wife of the family, Yālū spends his evenings stalking young lovers, watching them have sex, and robbing and sometimes raping the women. The novel is told from Yālū’s point of view, as he narrates his confessions and brutal experiences, as well as the developments of the war and an entire generation growing up with it, from the prison where he ends up being (reference) (also in (1975 – 1988 Lebanese Civil War).
- Alīfah Rifʿat’s (1930 – 1996, Egypt) short story ‘Fī layl al-Shitāʾ al-Ṭawīl’ (‘In the long winter night’, 1985). This story’s heroine is married to her cousin who engages in marital rape and infidelity. However, she is told by her mother that the situation described is simply the way things are. The story can be found in Arabic under the similarly titled short story collection and was translated to English as: Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories (2014).
- Fuʾād al-Tikirlī’s (1927 – 2008, Iraq) short story ‘al-Qindīl al-Munṭafi’ (1954, English trans. ‘The Dying Lamp’, to be found in Modern Arabic Short Stories,1967) and the novel Al-Rajʿa al-Baʿīd (1993, English trans. The Long Way Back, 2001).
The first short story describes a man who wants to marry his neighbours’ 13-year-old daughter because of a sexual craving but is rejected by her parents because he is married and has children, so he forces his son to marry her. On the fourth night of the marriage, while the whole family is sleeping in the same room, and the young bridegroom does not dare to touch the bride whom he never wanted to marry, the father rapes the girl (reference).
In the novel Al-Rajʿ al-Baʿīd, three men, the brothers Midḥāt and ʿAbdal-Karīm and their nephew ʿAdnān, all love Munīra, the cousin of the brothers and ʿAdnāns aunt. One of the central scenes in the novel is the rape of Munīra by ʿAdnān, which is described by first Munīra herself and then in the third person but from Munīra’s point of view. The reader sees the development from a merry, innocent game, into bitter, humiliating violence. The novel goes on to describe Munīra’s marriage to Midḥat and his struggling with the fact that she is not a virgin, though not knowing the reason behind it. The novel is set during the political turmoil of Iraq in the late 1950s (reference)(also in F: Children and Family Life: Genealogies and inter-generational stories and 1958: Coup in Iraq / 14 July Revolution).
- Zakariyyā Tāmir’s (1931-, Syria) short story ‘Wajh al-Qamar’ (‘The Face of the Moon’), in which the narrator tells us the story of Samīḥa, who was raped as a child and has recently been divorced by her husband. She has failed to make the required transition from a secluded life, slapped by her father for revealing too much leg to a passionate lover endeavouring as best she can to imitate the movements and groans of the sexual act that have been rapidly taught to her by her female relatives in anticipation of her marriage (reference). The story can be found in Dimashq al-Ḥarāʾiq (‘Burning Damascus’, 1973).
- Laylā al-al-ʿUthmān’s (1943-, Kuwait) short story ‘al-Judrān Tatamazzaq’ (‘The Walls Fall Apart’) tells the story of a 14-year-old girl who lives with her married sister after her mother’s death. She tells her story to a social worker, describing how her brother-in-law forced himself on her several times. One of these times led to her pregnancy, and she eventually has the baby in the school toilet and kills it immediately (reference). The brother-in-law prosecutes the girl, who does not receive any support from society, and even her sister deserts her. The story can be found in her collection of short stories titled al-Ḥubb lahu Ṣuwar (‘Love has pictures’, 1982).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Aḥmad al-Aghbarī. 2018. “‘Arḍ al-Muʾāmirāt al-Saʿīdah’ lil-Yamanī Wajdī al-Ahdal: min Ikhtiṣāb al-Qāṣirān Ilā Ikhtiṣāb al-Waṭan.” www.alquds.co.uk, 9 August 2018, https://www.alquds.co.uk/%EF%BB%BF%D8%A3%D8%B1%D8%B6-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%A4%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D8%B9%D9%8A%D8%AF%D8%A9-%D9%84%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%85%D9%86%D9%8A-%D9%88%D8%AC%D8%AF%D9%8A/ (last accessed 28 October 2023)
- 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. 6 (retrieved from https://carpo-bonn.org/en/narratives-of-injustice-in-contemporary-yemeni-novels/, 6 May 2023)
- Tarek el- Ariss. 2013. Trails of Arab Modernity: Literary Affects and the New Political. New York: Fordham University Press, p. 148
- Hanadi al-Samman. 2008. “Out of the Closet: Representation of Homosexuals and Lesbians in Modern Arabic Literature.” JAL 39: 270-310, p. 290
- al-Kabīr al-Dādīsī. 2018. Masārāt al-riwāyah al-ʿarabiyyah al-muʿāṣirah, Muʾassah al-raḥāb al-ḥadīthah: Bayrūt, p. 103, 104
- Adam LeBor. 2008. “The Confession.” www.nytimes.com, 2 March 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/books/review/LeBor-t.html (last accessed 29 October 2023)
- Jamāl Jiyyāb and Nihyān Hawāwī. “Sīmiyāʾiyat al-ʿUtbāt al-Naṣiyyah wa-Dalāltuha fī Riwāyat ‘Yālū’ lil-Riwāʾī Ilyās Khūrī Anmūthijan.” Majallat al-Qāriʾ lil-Dirāsāt al-Adabiyyah wa al-Naqdiyyah wa al-Lughawiyyah 5(4): 21-35, p. 32
- Wiebke Walther. 1995. “Distant Echoes of Love in the Narrative Work of Fuʾād al-Tikrilī” in Love and Sexuality in Modern Arabic Literature, eds. Roger Allen, Hilary Kilpatrick, and Ed de Moor. London: Saqi Books, 131-139, p. 134, 136-138
- Roger Allen. 1995. “The Arabic Short Story and the Status of Women.” in Love and Sexuality in Modern Arabic Literature, eds. Roger Allen, Hilary Kilpatrick, and Ed de Moor. London: Saqi Books, 77-90, p. 80
- Shirīn Abū al-Najā. 2002. “Madākhil Ilā Qiṣaṣ Laylā al-al-ʿUthmān.” www.3rbi.info, August 2002, http://www.3rbi.info/Article.asp?ID=10684 (last accessed 29 October 2023)