Full Description
The only fiction collection available in English translation by the Arab world's greatest short-story writer of the twentieth century
Yusuf Idris (1927-91), who belonged to the same generation of pioneering Egyptian writers as Naguib Mahfouz and Tawfiq al-Hakim, is widely celebrated as the father of the Arabic short story. He studied and practiced medicine, but his interests were in politics and the support of the nationalist struggle, and in writing—and his writing, whether in his regular newspaper columns or in his fiction, often reflected his political convictions. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature more than once, and when the prize went to Naguib Mahfouz in 1988, Idris felt that he had been passed over because of his outspoken views on Israel. In all, Yusuf Idris wrote some twelve collections of superbly crafted short stories, mainly about ordinary, poor people, many of which have been translated into English and are included, along with an extract from one of his novels, in this collection of the best of his work.
Contents
Introduction 1
The Cheapest Nights (translated by Wadida Wassef) pg 5
You Are Everything to Me (translated by Wadida Wassef) pg 11
The Errand (translated by Wadida Wassef)
Hard Up (translated by Wadida Wassef) pg 33
The Funeral Ceremony (translated by Wadida Wassef) pg 39
All on a Summer's Night (translated by Wadida Wassef) pg 43
The Caller in the Night (translated by Wadida Wassef) pg 59
The Dregs of the City (translated by Wadida Wassef) pg 71
Did You Have to Turn on the Light, Li-Li? (translated by Wadida Wassef) pg 109
Death from Old Age (translated by Wadida Wassef) pg 123
The Shame (translated by Wadida Wassef) pg 135
His Mother (translated by Catherine Cobham) pg 155
An Egyptian Mona Lisa (translated by Roger Allen and Christopher Tingley) pg163
The Chair Carrier (translated by Denys Johnson-Davies) pg 177
Rings of Burnished Brass (translated by Catherine Cobham) pg 183
The Shaykh Shaykha translated by Ragia Fahmi and Saneya Shaarawi) pg 203
It's Not Fair (translated by Denys Johnson-Davies) pg 215
House of Flesh (translated by Denys Johnson-Davies) pg 219
Farahat's Republic (translated by Denys Johnson-Davies) pg 227
The Greatest Sin of All (translated by Mona Mikhail) pg 245
from City of Love and Ashes (translated by R. Neil Hewison) pg 257
