This book is the first critical survey of modern Egyptian drama during the period of its maturity from the 1930s to the present day. A discussion of the work of Tawfiq al-Hakim is followed by an examination of the less experimental plays of his successors, Mahmud Taymur, Bakathir and Fathi Radwan.

Translations of 12 Arabic plays written and produced during the past thirty years.

This volume provides an authoritative survey of creative writing in Arabic from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day.

Moosa's exhaustive discussion, demonstrating the influence of both Western and Islamic ideology and culture, presents many works of fiction for the first time to Western students of Arabic literature.

Nearly sixty of Egypt’s past leaders—from the time of the Pharoahs to the twentieth century—are summoned to judgment in the Court of Osiris in the Afterlife, in this extraordinary novel by Nobel Prize–winning author Naguib Mahfouz. Before the Throne calls forth a parade of those who have shaped the modern nation of Egypt—from the ruler who first unified Egypt in 3000 BC to Anwar Sadat, the president assassinated by religious extremists in 1981, and including figures as various as the famous pharaoh Ramesses II and the medieval vizier Qaraqush. As they defend their decisions under questioning by Osiris, Isis, and Horus, those who acted for the nation’s good are honored with immortality in paradise while those who failed to protect it are condemned either to the inferno or to “the place of insignificance.” Full of Mahfouz’s unique insight into his country’s timeless qualities, this provocative work skillfully traces five thousand years of Egypt’s past as it flows into the turbulent present. Translated from the Arabic by Raymond Stock

This handbook aims mainly at an analytical documentation of all the known textual remnants and the preserved artifacts of Arabic shadow theatre, a long-lived, and still living, tradition — from the earliest sightings in the tenth century to the turn of the twentieth century. The book consists of three main parts and a cluster of appendixes. Part One presents a history of Arab shadow theatre through a survey of medieval and premodern accounts and modern scholarship on the subject. Part Two takes stock of primary sources (manuscripts), published studies, and the current knowledge of various aspects of Arabic shadow theatre: language, style, terminology, and performance. Part Three offers an inventory of all known Arabic shadow plays. The documentation is based on manuscripts (largely unpublished), printed texts (scripts, excerpts), academic studies (in Arabic and Western languages), journalist reportage, and shadow play artifacts from collections worldwide.

An introduction to Modern Arabic Literature, from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present

"Jayyusi provides biographical information on the writers as well as a substantial introduction to the development of modern Arabic fictional genres that considers the central thematic and aesthetic concerns of Arab short story writers and novelists."--Jacket.

Using previously unexploited sources, Philip Sadgrove provides a comprehensive account of the early history of theatre in Egypt, from the time of the French expeditionary force led by Napoleon in 1798, to the British occupation in 1882. His study - now available in paperback - looks at traditional forms of indigenous Arabic drama, the rise of European theatre in Egypt, the first abortive attempts to create a modern Arabic theatre in the early 1870s, and the project for a National Theatre. Finally, the book tells the story of the émigré Syrian troupes which were to play a decisive part in establishing a modern theatrical tradition. The author also sheds new light on the role of the dramatist and nationalist James Sanua and other lesser-known Egyptian pioneers of the theatre.