- Rabih Alameddine (1959-, Lebanon/ USA) – Koolaids: The Art of War (1998). This English-language novel is set in San Francisco and Beirut in the 1980s and 1990s. Disruption in the two cities, the former was the main site of the AIDS epidemic, and the later that of the Lebanese Civil War (see 1975 – 1988 Lebanese Civil War), is narrated by three protagonists who are accompanied by a plurality of voices (reference). The protagonists include Mohammed, a gay Lebanese painter living in the United States (also in D: Disabilities, Illness and Psychological Diseases: Illness: Aids).
- Raḍwā ʿĀshūr (1946 – 2014, Egypt) – al-Rihla: Ayyam Ṭalibah Misriyyah fi Amrīka (1983, English trans. The Journey: Memoirs of an Egyptian Woman Student in America, 2018). This novel tells the story of the author’s journey to the USA and her experiences as a PhD student graduating from the Afro-American Studies department and the English Department of the University of Massachusetts in 1975. Her dissertation, among others, focused on the applicability of African American literature to her home country of Egypt, something she also reflects on in this memoir. As such, she added her translations of among others the writings of W. E. B. Du Bois and Frederick Douglass (reference) (also in O: Occupations, Professions, and Hobbies: University Life: Academics and Students).
- Ḥussayn Barghūthī (1954 – 2002, Palestine) – al-Dawʾ al-Azraq (2001. English trans. The Blue Light, 2023). This novel reflects on Barghūthī’s experiences living in Seattle as a post-graduate student, specifically with the ‘mad men’ on the streets of the city as he himself also increasingly descends into madness, not being able to find meaning in exile and in academia (reference). The book is also the author’s existential reflection on solitude using reference to Sufi philosophy and thinking back of his childhood years (also in O: Occupations, Professions, and Hobbies: University Life: Academics and Students).
- Mohammed Dib’s (1920 – 2003, Algeria) – L.A. Trip (2003, English trans. L.A. Trip: A Novel in Verse, 2003). A collection of 103 poems that form a novel, this literary work tells of the author’s visit to a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles in 1974, although it was published much later. The strange city of L.A. is seen through the eyes of a stranger.
- ʿAzzaldīn Shukrī Fashīr (1966-, Egypt) – ʿAnāq ʿAnd Jisr Brūklīn (2011, English trans. Embrace on Brooklyn Bridge, 2017). This novel, which is essentially about identity, tells the story of eight Egyptians living in the USA, who critically examine their lives in exile and the struggle they face in finding a place to belong during the birthday party of the protagonist’s 21-year-old granddaughter to which they are all invited (reference). The granddaughter herself is not present but the host of the party, Prof. Darwīsh, and his guests get embroiled in philosophical and political discussions. One example is Darwīsh’s brother-in-law sympathizing with a view on 9/11 that not everybody agrees with.
- Āsiyyah ʿAbd al-Hādī (1945-, Palestine) – Gharb al-Muḥīṭ (‘West of the ocean’, 2012). This novel tells the story of a family full of hope for the future who migrates to New York (reference). The family is disillusioned however, to discover the different social classes in American society. While the mother of the family was a respected teacher in her own country, she takes on the job of a cleaner in the USA. They also discover that social relations are not based on being American, but on what origins that American has, and that Americans from Arab origin face discrimination and scrutiny following the 9/11 attacks (also in 2001 9/11 Twin Towers Attack).
- Yusūf Idrīs’ (1927 – 1991, Egypt) short story ‘Nīwyūrk 80’ (‘New York 80’, 1980) describes how an Egyptian writer and an American sex-worker who has a PhD and is also a sex therapist, meet in a bar in New York. The writer rejects the prostitute’s sexual advances, resulting a polemical exchange and her eventual breakdown as she leaves the bar unsatisfied. The short story can be found under the similarly title collection (1980). Its English translation can be found in the collection Tales of Encounter which was published in 2002.
- Mīrāl al-Ṭaḥāwī (1968-, Egypt) – Brūklīn Hāyts (2010, English trans. Brooklyn Heights, 2011). In this novel, Hind, an Egyptian divorced mother, moves to New York with her seven-year-old son and settles in a poor neighborhood. It describes their exile and the mother’s search for identity, particularly as a woman, as she switches between her New York life, and memories of her life in rural Egypt.
- Mustapha Tlili (1937 – 2017, Tunisia) – La Rage aux tripes (‘Rage in the guts’, 1975). La Rage aux tripes centers the journalist Jalal Ben Cherif, who lives and works in the affluent Manhattan neighborhood in New York as a correspondent for a Parisian journal (reference). Jalal describes, or rather criticizes, life around him, such as Manhattans walking their dogs and the contrast with poorer neighborhoods in New York, as he reflects on exile and separation, both of his family in Tunisia, as well as the life he had built in Paris and the separation from his partner Laura (reference).
- ʿAlāʾ al-Aswānī (1957-, Egypt) – Shīkāghū (2007, English trans. Chicago, 2007). Set in post 9/11 traumatized America, the novel describes several Egyptians clustered around the Illinois University trying to adapt to the American way of life. This ranges from constantly maligning their homeland, Egypt, whose inhabitants are considered born stupid, to a strong attachment to what they left behind by for example an attempt by one of the professors to resume contact with a girlfriend of decades ago (reference). Furthermore, the novel touches upon the theme of the American system with all its shortcomings, such as capitalism and racism (reference) (also in O: Occupations, Professions and Hobbies: University Life: Academics and Students).
- Rabīaʿ Jābir (1972-, Lebanon) – Amrīka (‘America’, 2009). This novel describes different characters who migrated to the USA on a ship in 1913. Its main character is the Lebanese Mārtā Ḥaddād, who travels to the USA to join her husband Khalīl, who has in the meantime met and married an American woman (reference). The novel describes how Mārtā finds her own way in the new country, accumulating wealth through her work and marrying again herself.
- Ṣunʿallāh Ibrāhīm (1937 – 2025, Egypt) – Amrīkānlī (‘Amricanly’, 2003), portrays Shukrī, a professor of comparative history in Cairo who receives a scholarship during the late 1990s to teach in San Francisco. When he arrives, he is largely naïve to the ultra-hierarchical nature of racial categories in America. He starts to compare Egypt’s history to that of the USA and critiques the USA’s imperial and capitalist policy and interventions abroad, while also shedding light on its working poor and unemployed who often lack any form of a social network (reference) (also in O: Occupations, Professions and Hobbies: University Life: Academics and Students).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Joseph Donica. 2019. “‘Addressing a virus, a war, or oneself’: Everyday Life in Rabih Alameddine’s ‘Koolaids: The Art of War’.” College Literature 46(2) 424-452, p. 424
- Ira Dworkin. 2018. “Radwa Ashour, African American Criticism, and the Production of Modern Arabic Literature.” Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry 5(1): 1-18, p. 6, 18
- Loulwah Kutbi. 2021. “The Blue Light.” www.mathqaf.com, 27 May 2021, http://mathqaf.com/2021/05/27/the-blue-light/ (last accessed 4 December 2023)
- Maria Lynx Qualey. 2017. “Book review: Embrace on Brooklyn Bridge asks what does it mean to be an Arab- American.” www.thenational.ae, 1 July 2017, https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/book-review-embrace-on-brooklyn-bridge-asks-what-does-it-mean-to-be-an-arab-american-1.73635 (last accessed on 2 December 2018)
- Rifʿat al- ʿAllān. 2012. “ʿAbd al-hādī Tarṣud Muʿānāh al-Muhājirīn al-ʿArab fī Riwāyatiha ‘Gharb al-Muḥīṭ’.” www.alrai.com, 16 April 2012, https://alrai.com/article/504554/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%A3%D9%8A%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AB%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%81%D9%8A/%D8%B9%D8%A8%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%AF%D9%8A-%D8%AA%D8%B1%D8%B5%D8%AF-%D9%85%D8%B9%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%AC%D8%B1%D9%8A%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B1%D8%A8-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%8A%D8%AA%D9%87%D8%A7-%D8%BA%D8%B1%D8%A8-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%AD%D9%8A%D8%B7 (last accessed 5 November 2021)
- Callixte Kayiranga. 2006. De La Violence Dans La Rage Aux Tripes de Mustapha Tlili. (Masters’ Thesis, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario) Retrieved through https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/handle/11375/10069 p. 3, 5, 7 (last accessed 5 December 2023)
- Hartmut Fähndrich. 2016. “Chapter 6: Losing Home. Out of the Coziness into the Cold: Glimpses of the Idea of Home in a Few Novels of Modern Arabic Literature,” in Representations and Visions of Homeland in Modern Arabic Literature, eds. Sebastian Günter and Stephan Milich. Georg Olms Verlag: Hildesheim, Zürich, New York. pp. 103-115, p. 104
- Antonella Ghersetti. 2012. “Utopia and Dystopia in ʿAlāʾ al- Aswānī’s Chicago.” MEL 15(3): 286-304, p. 291
- ʿĀdil al-Asṭah. 2015. “‘Amrīkā’ li-Rabīʿa Jābir: Tadāʿiyāt.” www.al-ayyam.ps, 6 January 2015, https://www.al-ayyam.ps/ar_page.php?id=e8b1608y243996168Ye8b1608 (last accessed 5 December 2023)
- Mara Naaman. 2006. “America Undone: Sonallah Ibrahim’s Intra- Imperial Investigations.” AJCP 26: 71- 93, p. 78