An alleyway of Tangier as seen through the eyes of a prostitute, the price paid by a sophisticated Cairene philanderer for his infatuation with a young bedouin girl, the callous treatment a young wife receives from the man to whom she has been married. These are some of the themes of the twenty-four stories in this volume, each by a different author and rendered into English by one of the finest translators of Arabic fiction. Among the authors represented are Edward El-Kharrat, Bahaa Taher, Alifa Rifaat, and Ghassan Kanafani. Through the eyes of insiders, these stories show us the intimate texture of life throughout the diverse countries and cultures of the Arabic world.
Arabic Short Stories
About the Book
Table of Contents
Notes on authors
Note on transliteration
Introduction by Roger Allen
The Chair Carrier by Yusuf Idris
The Gap in Kaltouma's Fence by Ibrahim Ishaq Ibrahim
My Brother by Mohamed El-Bisatie
At a Woman's House by Mohammed Ahmed Abdul Wali
Clocks Like Horses by Mohammed Khudayyir
Advice from a Sensible Young Man by Bahaa Taber
Glimpses from the Life of Maugoud Abdul Maugoud
and Two Postscripts by Yusuf Sharouni
Another Evening at the Club by Alifa Rifaat
The Cypriot Man by Tayeb Salih
The Drumming Sands by Ibrahim Al-Kouni
Cairo is a Small City by Nabil Gorgy
The Persian Carpet by Hanan Shaykh
Voices from Near and Far by Abdul Ilah Abdul Razzak
Birds' Footsteps in the Sand by Edward El-Kharrat
Life by Instalments by Mohammed Barrada
Dreams Seen by a Blind Boy by Yusuf Abu Rayya
The Trial of the Small Black Woman
by Abdel-Hakim Kassem
Flower Crazy by Mohammed Chukri
The Old Man by Gamil Atia Ibrahim
Distant Seas by Habib Selmi
The Little Girl in Green by Ibrahim Asian
Small Sun by Zakaria Tamer
The Slave Fort by Ghassan Kanafani
The Kerosene Stove by Mahmoud Al-Wardani