Modern Arabic Short Stories: A Bilingual Reader PDF
Preview Modern Arabic Short Stories: A Bilingual Reader
MODERN ARABIC S hort stories ٠ ةفق - ب ي ت Ronak Husni & Daniel L. Newman MODERN ARABIC SHORT STORIES A Bilingual Reader SAQI ISBN 13: 978-0-86356-436-9 Copyright © Ronak Husni & Daniel L. Newman, 2008 Allrights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical\ includingphotocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from thepublisher. This book is soldsubject to the condition that ;■/ shallnot, by way of trade ٠٢ otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in anyform ofbindingor ،•٢^٠ other than that in whichis published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP reeord for this book is available from the Library of Congress Printed and bound by CPI Mackays, Chatham, ME5 8TD. SAQI 26 Westbourne Grove, London W2 5RH 825 Page Street, Suite 203, Berkeley, California 94710 Tabet Building, Mneimneh Street, Hamra, Beirut WWW. saqibooks. com Contents Introduction 7 Note on Transliteration Ah^eviations 12 Izz al-Dln al-Madanl لو The Tale ofthe Lamp لو Zakariyya Tamir 41 A Lonely Woman 43 Muhammad al-Zafzaf 5ة The Sacred Tree 58 Ibrahim al-Faqlh 7° Excerptfrom The Book ofThe Dead 72 Najlb Mahfuz 104 Qismati and Nasibi 107 Hanan al-Shaykh ل44 Yasmine's Picture 147 Muhammad Shukrl ا6ق The Night and the Sea ا6بم Idwar al-Kharrat 178 6 Modern Arabic Short Stories: A Bilingual Reader At the Theatre 180 Salwa Bakr 198 Ancestral Hair 200 Fu’ad al-Takarll 220 A Hidden Treasure 222 Layla al-‘Uthman 247 Night ofTorment 248 Yusuf Idris 265 A Trayfrom Heaven 267 Bibliography ق95 Introduction The short stO!^ {qissa, uqsusa) is a particularly vibrant genre in contempora^ Arabic literature, and almost all major authors have at one point or another in their careers ventured into this field. The present collection provides the reader with a taste of the prowess of the masters of the modern Arabic short story. All except Naj؛b Mahfuz, Yusuf Idris, Muhammad ShukrI and Muhammad al-Zaf^f are active to date. Naturally, when putting together a reader of this type, it is not always easy to decide whom to include and exclude. The selection process involved many an hour vividly discussing the multitude of stories from which we had to choose. At the same time, we did not focus exclusively on an author’s most recent work; instead, we chose to include those stories that were most appropriate for the reader, and which had not been translated. All too often, works of this kind, though claiming to represent Arabic literature in general, are decidedly “Eastern- centred” inasmuch as the focus is on Middle Eastern authors. As one of the aims of the present book is to provide readers with a sample of the best in modern Arabic short stories, we wanted to make sure that all areas of the Arab world would be represented, ٢٢٥٨١ Morocco to Iraq and the Gulf Similarly, we also aimed to include both male and female authors, without, however, falling prey to “political correctness”؛ rather, the Modern Arabic Short Stories: A Bilingual Reader objective was to provide as complete a picture of the modern Arabic short story landscape as possible. The potential readership for this book is varied. Though the primary target audience consists of students of Arabic, the fact that each story is accompanied by an English translation makes the book accessible to all those interested in contemporary Arab fiction but who lack the language skills to read the stories in the original. There are ample notes following each story in which relevant language and cultural points are discussed, making this reader eminently suitable for both home and classroom use. The stories in the book can be used in core language classes as well as in a Modern Arabic Literature course at all levels. Although some ofthe texts may be too challenging for novices, they will provide good practice for more advanced students. We have taken this into account by arranging the texts in order of difficulty, the easier ones first. The added advantage to this graduated approach is that it enables students to chart their own progress and proficiency. Anyone dealing with Arabic texts has to confront the issue of language variety in view ofthe diglossic nature ofthe language, i.e. the fact that there are competing varieties, linked to register, many of which are mutually unintelligible. As this is neither the place nor the occasion to enter into a disquisition on this controversial topic, suffice it to say that we have decided to include only stories written in the normative (supranational) variety, known as Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), or fushd (ى غشر. At the same time it is, of course, impossible to exclude the colloquial {‘dmmiyya, darija) altogether, since no Arabic speaker has MSA as his or her mother tongue, so it is only natural that in dialogue most authors render the language that is actually spoken. In those cases, the vernacular expressions are fully glossed in the notes with their equivalents in MSA. As a result, the book also offers highly interesting insights into the sociolinguistics ofthe colloquial and the interaction be^veen MSA and the * Introduction و while containing interesting samples of colloquial expressions from all over the Arabic-speaking world. All words in the language notes - including the titles ofthe books mentioned - are fully vowell^d, whereas the ' vowels ofthe imperfect tense (عراضملا) of form I verbs are added in brackets, e.g.زمع (u). If ther^ is more than one possibility, both are given, e.g.ثفن (i, u). So-called diptote forms are marked by a damma (١, e.g.يصاونلا In all other cases, declension vowels a^e omitted, as is the “nunation” (ن ش ) - the regular indefinite inflectional noun ؟n.dings - except for the accu؛ative singular in certain words, e.g.اوفع, but ةمصاع (rather than ةمصاع). As texts and translation appear together, the language notes are, quite naturally, much shorter than they would have been had we opted for a traditional reader with only the original texts. Here, too, we have been led by a commonsensical and pragmatic approach, in that we have excluded comments on language points that the learner can easily find in standard translating dictionaries. Indeed, there is little point in simply repeating the translations that appear opposite the text! Notes were added for unusual meanings and/or cultural or intertextual references that were thought to be unfamiliar to our target readership. In this, we have been guided by our extensive joint teaching experience. At the same time we are fully aware that this process is to some extent subjective, and the results open to debate. As far as the translations are concerned, we have taken into account the fact that the reader will primarily be used as a teaching and learning resource; as a result, an attempt was made to provide both an idiomatic translation and a crib for the student. All the translations are ours, except for the Qur’an translations in the notes, which are those of M. Pickthall (1996). The original texts appear in the way they do in the original publications, i.e. without any post-editing on our part, which includes, for instance, the often inconsistent vowel and declension markings. io Modern Arabic Short Stories: A Bilingual Reader Each story is preceded by a brief biography of the author, his or her key works and a brief background to the story. Finally, we should like to thank the authors and others who have kindly granted permission to include the stories in the book. We are especially indebted to Salwa Bakr, Idwar al-Kharr^, Fu^d al-Takarl؛, Zakariyya Tamir and Layla al- ‘Uthman, who offered very useful advice on a number of issues and also provided us with biographical details. Ronak Husni & Daniel L. Newman
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