A01=Catherine Cobham
A01=Fabio Caiani
Abd al-Malik Nuri
Arabic literature
Author_Catherine Cobham
Author_Fabio Caiani
Category=DSBH
Category=DSK
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Fu'ad al-Takarli
Gha'ib Tu'ma Farman
Iraqi culture
Iraqi fiction
Mahdi Isa al-Saqr
postcolonial fiction
Product details
- ISBN 9781399565523
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 31 May 2026
- Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
This exploration of the work of Iraqi novelists begins with the early pioneering works and then moves towards an outline of the vibrant Baghdad cultural scene during the 1940s and 1950s. It pays articular attention to detailed textual analysis and the evaluation and comparison of the aesthetic and poetic qualities of the key works of the four writers who form the central subject of the book: Abd al-Malik Nuri (1921–98), Gha’ib Tu‘ma Farman (1927–90), Mahdi Isa al-Saqr (1927–2006) and Fu’ad al-Takarli (1927–2008) – all of whom began to write in or around the pivotal decade of the 1950s.
It is in these writers’ works that Iraqi fiction came of age and reached artistic maturity. The best of them are among the most complex portrayals of the particularities of life in Iraq and the human condition in general to come out of the Arab world.
Fabio Caiani teaches Arabic in the Department of Arabic of the University of St Andrews. His research focuses on modern Arabic fiction. His publications (in either English or Italian) include the monograph Contemporary Arab Fiction: Innovation from Rama to Yalu (Routledge: 2007) on the Post-Mahfuzian novel, and studies of Yusuf Idris, Edwar al-Kharrat and Elias Khoury. Catherine Cobham is a lecturer in Arabic language and literature at the University of St Andrews. She has published research on Yusuf Idris, Naguib Mahfouz, Edwar al-Kharrat, Abdelilah Hamdouchi and Hanan Al-Shaykh. She has also translated the works of Adonis, Naguib Mahfouz, Mahmoud Darwish, Hanan al-Shaykh and Fuad al-Takarli, amongst others.
