- Ahmed Bouanani (1938 – 2011, Morocco) – L’Hȏpital (1990, English trans. The Hospital, 2018). The unknown narrator of this novel describes his stay in the hospital as increasingly resembling a prison stay or a strange nightmare. He starts seeing the living as dead and hallucinating about other patients and himself, such as turning into a spider (reference). The novel is based on the author’s own experience suffering from tuberculosis and having to spend six months in quarantine in a Moroccan hospital (also above in this section in: Psychological Disorders: Hallucinations and Deliriums).
- Muḥammad ʿAlī Maghribī (1915 – 1996, Saudi Arabia) – al–Baʿth (‘Resurrection’, 1948) an early Saudi novel, this story describes the journey of Usāmah, a young man who is sent to India to be treated for tuberculosis (reference). He boards a ship from the port of Jeddah, and the novel continues to describe his journey, including meetings on the ship with European passengers and going ashore at Aden and Zanzibar before reaching Mumbai, where he is struck by the modernity of the city which he compares to those of Saudi Arabia (reference). He eventually returns to Saudi Arabia (also in W: Outside the Arab World: Asia).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Ursula Lindsay and Maria Lynx Qualey, hosts. 2018. “Is It a Beach Book?” Bulaq Podcast, The Arabist,14 July 2018. https://arabist.net/bulaq/2018/7/14/18-is-it-a-beach-book.html (last accessed 11 January 2025)
- Sultan S.M. Al-Qahtani. 1994.The novel in Saudi Arabia: emergence and development 1930-1989: an historical and critical study. (doctoral dissertation University of Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom) Retrieved from http://theses.gla.ac.uk/8131/ (last accessed 4 May 2021) p. 51, 52