New book aims to bring the history of Arab literature to the fore

Ask someone about the history of French literature and they might recite a couple of Voltaire quotes before extolling the virtues of Victor Hugo and challenging the ideas of Camus.

Ask about German literature and they will perhaps tell you about the Brothers Grimm before mourning the late, great Günter Grass.

Ask about Arabic literature, however, and, well, they’ve probably heard of One Thousand and One Arabian Nights and … that’s often as far as their experience goes.

It can feel, to those in and from the West, that Arabic literature and literary tradition is a something we would never have the time to catch up with. From romantic poets, religious texts and revolutionary philosophers, there’s simply too much reading to get through – we could never get to a point where we might understand the references and canon well enough to enjoy the modern output.

We’ve all been waiting, then, for a book like Desert Songs of the Night: 1500 Years of Arabic Literature – and it feels like it has been a long time coming. The book, published by UK publisher Saqi Books and edited by Suheil Bushrui and James M Malarkey, takes on the daunting task of anthologising Arabic literature.

Starting in the pre-Islamic age (Jahiliyya), it meanders through the Abbasid Dynasty and five other literary ages before arriving at Modern Arabic Literature.

This wide-ranging book encompasses well-known names such as Ibn Battuta and puts them in the context of their contemporaries and the wider history of writing that has come out of the region.

Original article by James Tennet

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New book aims to bring the history of Arab literature to the fore