Jamal Assadi - Böcker

Mohammad Ali Taha is a well-known Palestinian writer residing in Galilee as an Israeli citizen. Despite his fame in the Arab world, his works are still unfamiliar to Western audiences. In this volume, translator Jamal Assadi has collected a selection of Taha’s short stories, representing a variety of themes, styles, historical periods, contexts, settings, tones, languages, narrations, and characters, with the intent to help Taha enter what Edward Said calls «the large, many-windowed house of human culture as a whole». In his introduction, Assadi discusses the culture, traits, and manners of Taha’s world, which provides the reader with a greater appreciation and understanding of the short stories in this volume.

Mustafa Murrar’s stories span more than a fifty-year period. Jamal Assadi has translated a selection of these stories to introduce this Palestinian writer to a wider public through the English language. This volume includes serious stories with light and humorous scenes, love stories intermingled with tales of the unusual, and political stories interwoven with love scenes. This book enables Murrar to tell his own stories and the stories of his people – stories of alienation and marginalization but also of hopes and dreams – in a new magnified voice. All readers will savor the aroma of a different culture, while scholars of Arabic literature will be given the chance to tread new fields for academic assessment and critique.

With the rise of the various intellectual streams in the Western world in the second half of the twentieth century, modern Arab poets recognized the need to promote the Arabic poem. They knew that the road of self exploration and promotion begins in the ancestral legacy. The Road to Self-Revival explores the tendency of modern Arabic poetry to summon Sufi figures, thinking, philosophy, terms, attitudes and practices. Specifically, this volume focuses on the poetry of four Arab modernists: Abdul Wahab al-Bayyati (1926-1999), Ali Ahmad Said known as Adonis (1930-), Salah Abdu-s-Sabur (1931-1981) and Mahmud Darwish (1941-2008). The book traces a number of Sufi figures in the poetry of these poets: Bishr ibnul-Ḥārith Al-Ḥāfī (767-840), Al-Ḥusain Ben Mansūr Al-Ḥallāj (858-922), Farīd ed-Dīn Al-‘Aṭṭār (1145/46-1221), Muḥyī ed-Dīn bnul-‘Arabī (1165-1240) and Jalāl ad-Dīn Moḥammad Rūmī (1207-1273).

The Story of a People is the sixth in a series of volumes on Palestinian writers who compel into unity the contradictions of being Israeli citizens as well as sons and daughters of the Palestinian people. This volume contains the works of forty poets, and offers a variety of themes, styles, contexts, imagery, tones, and language.The poets, arranged alphabetically, depict a faithful picture of the various aspects of Arab life among what is called, paradoxically, Israeli-Palestinian societies. They present new arenas where opposing factors harmoniously join to struggle for dignity, freedom, and justice. Readers of this volume will encounter serious poems strewn with light and humorous themes and poems of sensual and spiritual love interwoven with poems of the unusual and political. These Israeli- Palestinian poets’ distinctive flavor emerges from their ability to challenge norms, fight oppression, and burst open closed doors to tell their own stories – the stories of their plight, alienation, marginalization, and hopes and dreams – in a new magnified voice, first to their community, then to their people and nation, then to their country, and now to the wider English-speaking public.

This selection of Ibrahim Mālik’s short stories and poetry brings together an illustrative compendium of his works, which propose a genuine portrait of the numerous predicaments, concerns, apprehensions, and coercions from which the Arab community inside Israel suffers. To a great extent, these difficulties are currently the lot of many ethnic groups and communities in the Middle East and many other parts of the world. General readers of this work will take pleasure in exploring a different culture, while specialists interested in Arabic literature will find new and bountiful grounds for academic study.

This volume seeks to document the development of the Palestinian short story between 1944 and 1967. This particularly significant phase that carried the seeds, from which the short story grew, was greatly influenced by the last years of the British mandate over Palestine in 1944, the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, and the subsequent changes that impacted Palestinian society in this country until the Arabs’ defeat in the Six Day War, 1967.Within the fold of this volume, the reader will find two parts: the first is a general account of the development of the genre of short fiction and the different approaches that characterized it along with a discussion of the language and an examination of the content. The second is an anthology of twenty-five stories published between 1944 and 1967 by Al-Ittiḥād, an Israeli Arabic-language daily newspaper.

Narratives in Modern Arabic Literature: Explorations in Place, Gender, and Ṣūfī Motifs offers a significant contribution to modern Arabic literary studies. By analyzing the roles of place, gender, and Ṣūfī motifs, the book provides a nuanced examination of key thematic elements in the field. Through detailed exploration of works by Nagib Mahfouz, Ibrahim Al-Kōnī, and Nawal Al-Saadawi, it reveals the transformative power of place, challenges traditional gender norms, and unravels complex spiritual symbolism. The inclusion of experimental fiction enriches this interdisciplinary study, making it an essential resource for scholars and students of Arabic and comparative literature, cultural, and gender studies."This book represents a comprehensive portrayal of human life - body, soul, time, and place - from a critical perspective of narrative literature. The author, Assadi, carefully selects and interacts with texts, demonstrating a thorough understanding of this art form, drawing from heritage while looking towards the future. It serves as a platform for self-expression, thought, and critique. I hope this inspiring and distinctive journey will open the door for further exploration."—Professor Dr. Ahmed Safaa Abdul Aziz Al-Ani, Professor of Language and Discourse Analysis, University of Anbar, Iraq - Baghdad March 5, 2024