- Jalāl Barjas (1970-, Jordan) – Dafātir al-Qarrāq (2020, English trans. The Bookseller’s Notebooks, 2022). This novel, which won the 14th edition of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, is set in Jordan and Moscow between the years 1947 and 2019. It tells the story of Ibrāhīm, a fervent reader who became homeless and who suffers from schizophrenia, as he commits a series of crimes and assumes the identities of the protagonists he loves (reference) (see for more information in C: Cities: Jordan: Amman).
- Muʾnis al-Razzāz (1951 – 2002, Jordan) – Matāhah al-Aʿrāb fī Nāṭḥāt al-Saḥāb (‘The maze of the Bedouins in mirage scrapers’, 1986). This novel explores the psychological state of its main narrator, Ḥasanayn, and therethrough that of the modern Arab individual in general (reference). Ḥasanayn is divided in two Ḥassan’s: one dominated by the legacy of the past who is described to be dead and buried (thus a ghost), and the second a scientist living in 1950s Jordan. Ḥassan is increasingly incapable of coping with his schizophrenic personality and attempts suicide. The novel is also a political criticism of the “deceptive nature of the institutionalisation and modernity within the Arab states” (reference).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Manal Shakir. “Review: ‘The Bookseller’s Notebooks’ follows a tragic decent into madness.” www.arabnews.com, 21 February 2023, https://www.arabnews.com/node/2255201/lifestyle (last accessed 11 January 2023)
- Fahd A. A. Salameh. 1998. The Jordanian Novel (1980-1990): A Study and an Assessment (doctoral dissertation, University of London, England) Retreived from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/161528623.pdf p. 124, 128 (last accessed 20 December 2020)