- Yūsūf al-ʿĀnī’s (1927 – 2016, Iraq / Jordan) play Anā Ummak yā Shākir (‘I am your mother, Shakir’, 1955) centres an Iraqi lower-middle-class family whose members join the events of the national movement raging around them in the run-up to the 1958 revolution (reference). The eldest son, Shākir, has been executed in prison by Iraqi despots and his presence in the play is only through a picture. His younger brother Saʿūdī is bound to meet the same faith. Their sister, Kawthar, is in hiding but soon found and arrested. All this leaves their mother alone but not weak, for she believes in the fight for the national cause (1958 Coup in Iraq / 14 July Revolution).
- Albert Cossery (1913 – 2008, Egypt) – La violence et la d’erision (1964, English trans. The Jokers, 2010). Set in a fictional Middle Eastern country, this novel portrays a how a group of unprivileged friends under the leadership of Heykal use humor as a means of resistance. By using exaggerated approval, they mock and play jokes on a government which they find corrupt and unethical.
- Muṭāʿ Ṣafadī (1929 – 2016, Syria) – Thāʾir Muḥtarif (‘Professional revolutionary’, 1961). This novel is set in Lebanon between July and November of 1958, the year in which a political crisis almost led to a civil war when the Lebanese president Camille Chamoun implemented a pro-Western foreign policy that opposed popular will and tried to secure a second presidential term. Hero of the novel is Karīm, who has participated in Arab revolutions for 15 years and who travels to Beirut to participate in the protests. Through his story, the novel describes the mindset of revolutionaries as well as the negative aspects that cause revolutions to fail (reference).
- ʿAbd al-Raḥman al-Sharqāwī’s (1920 – 1987, Egypt) short story collection Arḍ al-Maʿrakah (‘The battlefield’, 1953) portrays the popular struggle and resistance to the French military campaign, the social and political oppression of the British occupation, and the Ottoman and Mamluks rule. The six stories in the collection are based on historical reality (reference).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Ali al-Raʿi. 1992. “Arabic Drama since the thirties.” In Modern Arabic Literature. eds. Muhammad Mustafa Badawi. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 358-404, p. 394-5
Muṣṭafā ʿAbd al-Ghanī. 1994. “Al-Itijāh al-Qawmī fī al-Riwāyah”, Kitāb ʿĀlim al-Maʿrifah (188): p. 129-133
- Susan Bāqrī. 2010. “ʿAbd al-Raḥman al-Sharqāwī al-Kātib al-Maṣrī: Ḥayātihi wa Adabihi.” www.diwanalarab.com, 21 October 2010, https://www.diwanalarab.com/%D8%B9%D8%A8%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%AD%D9%85%D9%86 (last accessed 30 September 2020)