MIDDLE EAST

LITERATURE
BACKGROUND
 Twenty-first-century Middle Eastern (primarily Arabic, Persian, and Turkish)
literature encompasses a rich variety of genres, whose maturation has
profited from internal and external influences upon this literature over the
past fourteen centuries. Modern Arabic literature addresses the full range of
human experience, often through a realist approach that employs the Arabic
language in ways ranging from the most formal to the most colloquial. While
Turkish and Persian literatures have both followed individual trajectories
since the modern period, they too evince a similar range with respect to
genre and employment of language.
 Although today these three literatures appear as discrete entities, they share
a long early religious, cultural, and political history. While pre-Islamic Persian
and Turkish literatures would prove influential when taken up by writers in
the first few centuries after Islam, pre-Islamic Arabic literature provided the
first literary model. Pre-Islamic Arabic literature is characterized by
the mua'allaqat (ca. mid 500s–early 600s ce), a collection of poems from the
Arabian Peninsula renowned for their beauty. These poems are odes to the
sorrows of lost love, using such tropes as abandoned campsites to evoke
memories of a beloved. That of Imru al-Qays (c. mid-500s), perhaps the best
known, begins: "Come, let us cry from the remembrance of a love and a
home." Although poetic themes have changed over the centuries, the
ode (qasida) has enjoyed continuing popularity through the twentieth
century.
 A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO SAUDI
LITERATURE, FROM 18TH C. SATIRE TO
21ST
 The diverse landscape of Saudi Arabia is often boiled down to oil, Wahhabism,
and wealthy autocrats. Even a brief skimming of Saudi literature reveals much
more: ribald poetry, superhero comix, award-winning novels, and migrant
stories.
 Although there was no “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” in the 18th century, we’ll
start our exploration of Saudi literature before the Wahhabi movement. To
this end, there’s Arabian Satire Poetry from 18th-Century Najd, by Hmedan
al-Shwe’ir. The book will be published bilingually, edited and translated by
Marcel Kurpershoek.
MIDDLE EAST WRITTERS
1.Elif Shafak
 Turkey’s most popular female author, but also one of the Middle East’s most
favorite novelists, Elif Shafak’s novels center around Sufi mysticism, love, and
magical realism. Her two most famous books that have gained widespread
love across the world are The Bastard of Istanbul and The Forty Rules of
Love: A Novel of Rumi.

2.Orhan Pamuk
 Another author from Turkey, Orhan Pamuk is the country’s best-selling author
and has sold over 13 million books; in part thanks to his winning of the 2006
Nobel Prize in Literature. Known for incorporating themes of art into many of
his novels, some of his most popular titles include The White Castle, Istanbul:
Memories and the City, and The Museum of Innocence.
3.Susan Abulhawa
 One of the most famous modern Palestinian writers and human rights activist,
Susan Abulhawa became a household name after the publication of her
bestselling novel, Mornings in Jenin. She is also the founder of a non-
governmental organization called “Playgrounds for Palestine”, and her second
book, The Blue Between Sky and Water, has already been sold in 19 different
languages.

4.Khaled Hosseini
 Born in Afghanistan, Khaled Hosseini’s most famous novel is probably The Kite
Runner, which won huge acclaim across the world. Originally a physician, he
retired and became a full-time writer and has since written other hugely
popular books, including A Thousand Splendid Suns and And the Mountains
Echoed.
5.Inaam Kachachi
 An Iraqi author and journalist, Inaam Kachachi continues to write both novels
and work as a correspondent for Arabic-language newspapers in Paris. Her
novel The American Granddaughter became highly acclaimed and was
nominated for the Arabic Booker Prize and shortlisted for the International
Prize for Arabic Fiction.

6.Etel Adnan
 Born in 1925 in Beirut and still loved today as much as she was almost a
century ago, Etel Adnan is one of the Middle East’s most favorite poets.
Writing novels and poetry in English, French, and Arabic, some of her most
well-noted works in English include the novel Sitt Marie Rose and her
collection of poetry titled Sea and Fog.
7.Samar Yazbek
 Born in Syria, she was thrust into the limelight when she openly denounced
the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in 2011 during the Syrian uprising,
although she is a part of his family. Her activism and writing has won her
acclaim throughout the Middle East and the world, with some of her most
famous works including The Crossing: My Journey to the Shattered Heart of
Syria and A Woman in the Crossfire: Diaries of the Syrian Revolution.

8.Hawra Al-Nadawi
 An Iraqi author born to both Arab and Kurdish parents who were prisoners
under Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, Hawra Al-Nadawi herself remembers
staying in Saddam’s jails with her mother. Her writing is gaining more and
more popularity with its powerfully emotional prose, with her debut
novel Under the Copenhagen Sky quickly gaining international recognition.
9.Badria Al-Bishr
 A Saudi Arabian writer and novelist, Badria Al-Bishr continues to write novels
focusing on strong female themes despite the pushback from the Saudi state
at times. Some of her most notable novels include Hind and the Soldiers, The
Seesaw, and Love Stories on Al-Asha Street.

10.Ahlam Mosteghanemi
 Born in Tunisia but originally from Algeria and often called the “world’s best
Arabic novelist”, Ahlam Mosteghanemi continues to inspire young readers
across the Middle East. Usually writing in Arabic, most of her works have been
translated into English because of their popularity, with favorites
including Memory in the Flesh, Chaos of the Senses, and The Art of
Forgetting.