The Arabic novel… The Daughter of Civilization Interaction

• Publisher: Sharjah Ministry of Culture

Sharjah: Osman Hassan

In his book Contemporary Arabic Fiction and Other/Comparative Literature Studies, Iraqi critic Dr. Najem Abdullah Kazem studies the sensitivity of great Arab writers, especially novelists, to the influence of international fiction. He describes these writers’ reactions to this topic as “oversensitive”. At the same time, he emphasizes that influence and impact do not diminish the literary and BroadCast Unitedlectual value of these novelists. On the contrary, he believes that influence is necessary, perhaps a “universal feature” that allows literature to go beyond its own or narrow circle and move towards an increasingly wider range, contributing to knowledge, cognition and cultural exchange.

Published by the Sharjah Ministry of Culture, the book is medium-sized, with 224 pages, and includes an introduction and three chapters: (On the Question of Influence and Influence in Contemporary Arab Fiction, and Kafka’s Influence on Contemporary Arab Fiction).

In the introduction to the book, Dr. Kazim points out the importance of influence and impact in the study of comparative literature, and he believes that comparative literature provides criticism with one of the tools or means of the critical process, especially when criticism, when dealing with literary works, seeks to explore the depth of the text, reveal the process of its creation, and obtain the best reception of what it contains in terms of subject matter and art provided by Dr. Star among international critics, who emphasize the science of comparative literature as a whole, as Mario François Guyard (one of the most important figures in comparative literature in the twentieth century) said: is a global literary history comparative literature flourishes across national borders in the process of exchanging themes, ideas, books or feelings between two or more literatures.

Thus, according to Joseph Sibley, it is the study of the mutual relations between the literatures of different nations, while according to Claude Peysoy and André Rousseau it is more comprehensive, as they say: “Comparative literature is the art of bringing literature into the world. It systematically approaches other areas of expression and knowledge by searching for similarities and affinities, or by bringing closer literary facts and texts, however distant in time and place, as long as they belong to several languages ​​​​or several cultures and that they form part of one tradition, in order to describe and savor them in a better way. “

*Response and Receiving

Want. The star is that readers have their own readings. No matter what type of reader they are, no matter what the nature of their reading is, there are naturally many forms of influence and being influenced by multiple readings. Reception theory is the application of reader response theory. The reading process is a new formation of the previously formed reality, that is, the literary work itself. The focus of the reading process is how to deal with this transformed reality formation, and this process is the different levels of reality: the reality of life, the reality of the text, the reality of the reader, and finally the new reality formed by the strong cohesion between the text and the reader.

*Existentialist literature

The most influential waves in Arab fiction and literature from the 1950s to the 1980s were existentialist literature, absurd literature, and stream-of-consciousness writing. Jabra Ibrahim Jabra said: Sartre was the most popular writer in the Beirut book market, and the response in Baghdad and Cairo was huge. People could not agree with everything Sartre said, but his ideas became extremely important to the new generation of writers who tried to deal with the political and social issues that influenced their time.

In general, the names of writers such as Sartre, Kafka, Camus, Wilson, Joyce, Wolfe, Faulkner, etc., were popular among the BroadCast Unitedlectuals of the period and even in the general culture, which made their works play their role. Arab writers, especially Arab Levantine writers, were influenced by various influences, so if the Suhail Idris trilogy began with the promotion of existentialist philosophy, then Mouta Safadi had already made great progress in this field until his work became a kind of philosophical abstraction, BroadCast Unitedlectual theorization and personal treatment of ideas and values ​​that have nothing to do with the reality of life, as we see in his novels “Generation of Destiny” and “Professional Revolutionary”, they proposed an individualistic, existentialist position based on BroadCast Unitedlectual non-affiliation and freedom of choice, which we see, for example, in the works of George Salem and Fuad Takali. Among these waves and trends, the absurdist writer Kafka is considered one of the most influential novelists, with his novels such as “The Case”, “The Castle”, “America” ​​and his novel “The Metamorphosis”. It appears in the works of many Arab novelists, such as George Salem in Exile, Jabra Ibrahim in The Other Room, and Ibrahim Nasrallah in more than one work.

* East and West

The author of this book confirms that this is a product of influences and impacts that became a reality after a cultural encounter between the East and the West, including the Arab world, and the result of this encounter on the ground is that the image of each of them crystallized in their minds, based on the Westerner’s experience with the Arab and his view of him, and the Arab’s experience with the Westerner and his view of him. On the other hand, if the image we are trying to reveal is that of one of the Western characters – that is, the American – and is the product of contemplation and analysis of fictional characters, because they are fictional characters, then it is natural that this image, to some extent, expresses the novelist’s own vision and, ultimately, some of the Arab’s views of Western characters, and this vision may be part of the writer’s overall position or image.

The period after the First World War saw, on the one hand, the artistic establishment of the Arabic novel and its development in most Arab countries, and, on the other hand, a greater openness of the Arabs to the West – forced and chosen – and their active contribution to its growing openness, consolidating and activating relations with it, especially after the Second World War, and its most important works: The Bird of the East by Tawfiq Al Hakim, Kandil Umm al-Hashim by Yahya Haji and The Latin Quarter by Suhail Idris. However, these novels reflect the other side of the sometimes softening, sometimes hardening psychological and cultural wall between Eastern and Western civilizations.

As for the most important novels of the 1970s and 1980s on the theme of the encounter between the East and the West, there are many, the most famous of which are: “Season of Migration to the North” by Taib Saleh, “Trees”, “A Night on the Train” by Abdul Rahman Munif, “A Night on the Train” by Issa Naouri, “Outstanding People” by Mohammed Eid, “The Diary of Mr. Ali Said” by Adnan Rauf, “Shining the West” by Leila Al-Atrash, “Witnesses and Blacks” by Mahdi Issa Al Saker, “Playing in Loud Places” by Ali Kayoun, and “Black Ice” by Mohammed Azouka.

*extract

• A book is like a bottle with a message in it that is thrown into the sea and may or may not reach its destination.
• In the field of reading and reception, it is well known that there is what is called reader-response theory or reader-response criticism.
• The popularity of magical realism is huge, necessary and effective, especially in the works of Arab novelists.
• Reading plays a vital role in the influence of literary works.
• The text has a social dimension, which means that the reader exists in it before reading it.