- Rabah Belamri (1945 – 1995, Algeria) – Le soleil sous le tamis (‘The sun under the screen’, 1982). Semi-autobiography of the author’s childhood in his village of Bougaa in Algeria during the 1950s, when the Algerian War took place (also in 1954 – 1962 French Algerian War and Algerian Independence). While the narrator describes the pleasures of childhood and the daily life, traditions, and customs of fellow villagers, he is also confronted with the violence of colonialism, under which his village was called La Fayette (reference).
- Jān Dūst (1965-, Syria) – Mamar Āmin (2019, English trans. Safe Corridor, 2025). This novel focuses on the experiences of Kurdish communities in Afrin during the Syrian Civil War, including the occupation of Daesh/ISIS in 2014 and the operation ‘Olive Branch’ in 2017.[1] It is narrated by the 13-year-old Kāmīrān (Kamu), whose body, in Kafkaesque fashion, turns into a piece of chalk when he flees from Afrin in collapsing Syria. The language mirrors a child’s perspective, as Kamu recounts the events around him along with his nightmares, fears, and instability, but also formative moments of happiness, such as his first sexual experience with the widow Mazziyat (reference) (also in M: Minorities: Kurds).
- ʿĀliyyah Mamdūḥ (1944-, Iraq) – Ḥabāt al-Naftālīn (1986, English trans. Mothballs: A Novel of Baghdad, 1995, later Naphtalene: A Novel of Baghdad, 2005). The young child Hudā grows up in poverty in Baghdad of the 1940s and 1950s in an instable household, fearing her father and with an ill mother. She describes her friendships with other children and the details of her house and neighborhood, Al-Adhamiyyah, including its residents. The story is set in Iraq’s early decades of independence of the British Empire, and Hudā follows the anti-colonial politics of Iraq in the news and in her neighborhood, such as the anti-British demonstrations (reference). The novel uses a child-like language and includes Iraqi dialect (reference) (also in 1940 – 1945 World War II).
- Mayy Minassā (1939 – 2019, Lebanon) – Intaʿal al-Ghubār wa Amshī (‘I turn on the dust and walk’, 2006). This novel looks at the scatterdness of memory, as the main character recalls her childhood experiences of witnessing violence in Lebanon and becoming an orphan after the death of her mother. Her mother had jumped on a bomb to save her and her brother. They were then forced into exile in France and after a difficult journey she ends up in an orphanage.
- Ḥayat al-Yāqūn (1981-, Kuwait) – Ka-al-Luʾluʾ (‘Like pearls’, 2012). This novel is narrated by the heroine in a dairy style from her entry into kindergarten into her adulthood, starting before the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq and continuing through the invasion and its effect on the daily lives of Kuwaiti families. The narrator’s family is forced to flee towards Saudi Arabia in the south, after which the narrator describes the family waiting for the liberation of Kuwait and their return (reference) (also in 1991: Gulf War: The Kuwaiti Side).
- Samar Yazbak (1970-, Syria) – al-Mashāʾah (2016, English trans. The Blue Pen, 2021). In this novel, Rīma, a young Damascene girl whose love for walking leads to her mother tying her to her own wrist or to her bed where she spent her time drawing (reference). However, when her mother dies after they have both been shot at a checkpoint, Rīma enters her brother’s violent world in rural Syria as the Syrian revolution evolves, before he eventually disappears and leaves her in the hands of his friend. However, when also this friend does not return to their basement hiding place, Rīma starts to draw her whole life story with the only blue pen she could find (also in 2011 Syrian Uprisings and Civil War).
- Ghassān Kanafānī’s (1936 – 1972, Palestine / Israel) short story ‘Arḍ al-Burtuqāl al-Ḥazīn’ (‘Land of Sad Oranges’), in which the writer uses the voice of a child to narrate the tragic events of the 1948 Nakbah. The homeland of Palestine is described as an endless orange grove that the child’s family had planted but that are no more, just as the narrator’s childhood in Jaffa has evaporated (reference). The short story can be found in the collection by the same name (1958, English trans. The Land of Sad Oranges’, 1962) (also in 1948 al-Nakbah).
- Batūl Khuḍaryī (1965-, Iraq) – Kam Badat al-Samāʾ Qarībah (1999, English trans. A Sky So Close, 2001). This novel is about an unnamed 6-year-old girl from an Iraqi father and English mother who moves to Baghdad just as the Iran – Iraq war begins (reference). She becomes obsessed with ballet and falls in love with a Christian Iraqi soldier. However, when her mother is dying, she must return to London to take care of her. The novel reflects on the identity the young girl carries, being both English and Iraqi, in the context of a clash between East and West, as well as the developments of the escalating war and the Iraqi society in the 1980s (reference) (also in 1980 – 1988 Iran – Iraq War).
- Hisham Matar (1970-, Libya) – In a Country of Men (2006) and Anatomy of a Disappearance (2011). Both written in English, these novels tell the disturbing tales of Libya’s history, and both draw on the author’s own experiences.
The first novel is set in 1979 in Tripoli, Libya. In it, the 9-year-old Suleiman describes the political terror of the Qaddafi regime such as seeing the father of his friend, the next-door neighbour, being publicly executed (reference). The effects of this terror are an uncertain life that is full of secrets. His own father was suspected by the Libyan regime of subversive activities during the revolution and disappeared, and his unhappy mother secretly drinks (reference). The novel describes the harrowing effects living under a dictatorial regime have on a young child (also in 1969 Libyan revolution – Muammar Qaddafi seizes power).
Anatomy of a Disappearance starts in 1972 and depicts Nuri, a fourteen-year-old boy from a place called ‘our country’, whose mother disappeared when he was ten (reference). Nuri lives in exile in Cairo with his businessman-activist father and his new stepmother Mona, who he loves intensely. His father then mysteriously disappears, and Nuri starts to look for him together with his stepmother Mona, a search which leads them to London, Geneva, and Cairo (reference).
- Shahhad al-Rāwī (1986-, Iraq) – Sāʿat Baghdād (2016, English trans. Baghdad Clock, 2018). This novel is narrated by a young girl who witnesses the changes taking place in Baghdad as she grows up (reference). The novel starts with her getting to know some girls in a bomb shelter, with whom she becomes friends. They live in the same neighbourhood and share many experiences, including life under strict sanctions. After a period of separation following the second Gulf War, the girls decide to write about the neighbourhood they grew up in which ultimately leads to a novel titled ‘sāʿat baghdād’, referring to the big clock in the middle of the neighbourhood’s garden that was a witness to the changes that took place during all those years (also in 1990 – 1991 Iraq invasion of Kuwait and the Gulf War: 1991 Gulf War).
- Lamia Ziadé (1968-, Lebanon / France) – Bye bye Babylone: Beyrouth 1975 / 1979 (2010, English trans. Bye Bye Babylon: Beirut 1975-1979, 2011). This is a French-language autobiographical graphic novel about coming of age during the Lebanese Civil War, in which the narrator portrays her story from the age of seven, starting in 1975 (also in 1975 – 1988 Lebanese Civil War)
- Ghassān Zaqṭān (1954-, Palestine) – Waṣf al-Māḍī (1995, English trans. Describing the Past, 2016). This poetic novella is the semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story of the Palestinian poet Zuqṭān, who moved to a setting similar to the Karameh refugee camp in Jordan when he was seven years old (reference). Through the eyes of a young boy, it describes the bittersweet memories of life in the camp, among others the death of a childhood friend, but also the beautiful nature. It questions the role of remembering and memory in the shaping of identity, whether on an individual or collective level.
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- J.P. Péroncel-Hugoz. 1983. “‘Le soleils sous le tamis’, de Rabah Belamri.” www.lemonde.fr, 26 February 1983 https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1983/02/26/le-soleil-sous-le-tamis-de-rabah-belamri-le-perou-entre-les-jambes_3079768_1819218.html
- Ibtisām al-Qashūrī. 2019. “’Mamar Āmin’ Riwāyah li-Jān Dūst: Riwāyah Kāfkāwiyah li-ʿĀlim bila Insāniyah.” www.alqudsalarabi.co.uk, 16 July 2019, https://www.alqudsalarabi.co.uk/%D9%85%D9%85%D8%B1-%D8%A2%D9%85%D9%86-%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D9%84%D8%AC%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%AF%D9%88%D8%B3%D8%AA-%D8%B1%D8%A4%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D9%83%D8%A7%D9%81%D9%83%D8%A7%D9%88%D9%8A/
- Ruth Abou Rached. 2021. “Paratranslating Iraqi Women’s Stories Twice: With Reference to Alia Mamdouh’s novel حيات النفتالين (1986/2000), ‘Mothballs’ (1995) and ‘Naphtaline: A Novel of Baghdad’ (2005)” in Translating Feminism Interdisciplinary Approaches to Text, Place and Agency, eds. Maud Anne Bracke, Julia C. Bullock, Penelope Morris, Kristina Schulz, Palgrave Macmillan: Cham, pp. 147-175, p. 150, 151
- al-Kabīr al-Dādīsī. 2018. Masārāt al-riwāyah al-ʿarabiyyah al-muʿāṣirah. Muʾassah al-raḥāb al-ḥadīthah: Bayrūt, p. 23
- Amīr al-Ḥalabī. 2017. “‘Samar Yazbak’.” www.ultrasawt.com, 20 July 2017, https://www.ultrasawt.com/%D9%85%D8%B4%D8%A7%D8%A1%D8%A9-%D8%B3%D9%85%D8%B1-%D9%8A%D8%B2%D8%A8%D9%83/%D8%A3%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%B1%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D9%84%D8%A8%D9%8A/%D8%A3%D8%AF%D8%A8/%D8%AB%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%81%D8%A9
- Samar Attar. 2016. “Chapter 9: Grieving over Home. A Mother or a Grave? The Vision of Homeland in 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. 155-183, p. 162
- Michael Maiello. 2001. “A Sky So Close by Betool Khedairi.” www.nytimes.com, 12 August 2001, https://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/12/books/books-in-brief-fiction-525910.html
- Maysūn Jaʿamūr. 2021. “Ṣirāʿa al-Gharb wa al-Sharq fī Riwāyah ‘Kam Badat al-Samāʾ Qarībah’.” www.magazine.imn.iq, 15 June 2021, https://magazine.imn.iq/ثقافية/صراع-الغرب-والشرق-في-رواية-كم-بدت-السم/
- Lorraine Adams. 2007. “The Dissident’s Son.” www.nytimes.com, 4 March 2007, https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/books/review/Adams.t.html
- Benedicte Page. 2006. “In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar.” www.independent.co.uk, 24 September 2006, https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/in-the-country-of-men-by-hisham-matar-417362.html
- Hermione Lee. 2011. “Anatomy of a Disappearance by Misham Matar – review.” www.theguardian.com, 26 February 2011, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/feb/26/anatomy-disappearance-hisham-matar-review
- Barbara Harlow. 2012. “From Flying Carpets to No-Fly Zones: Libya’s Elusive Revolution(s), According to Ruth First, Hisham Matar, and the International Criminal Court.” JAL 43: 431-457, p. 443
- Ḥāshim Shafīq. 2019. “al-Riwāʾiyyah al-ʿIrāqiyyah Shahhad al-Rāwī fī ‘Sāʾat Baghdād’: Istiḥḍār Shaẓāyā al-Azminah al-Māḍiyyah”, www.alquds.co.uk, 16 February 2019 https://www.alquds.co.uk/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%A6%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%82%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%B4%D9%87%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%88%D9%8A-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%A9-%D8%A8/
- Marcia Lynx Qualey. 2016. “The vapours of memory.” www.qantara.de, 10 October 2016, https://en.qantara.de/content/book-review-ghassan-zaqtans-describing-the-past-the-vapours-of-memory