THE FINAL TWO decades of the twentieth century were marked by dramatic historical events that radically transformed the Middle East: the Iranian Revolution, the Palestinian uprising (intifada), the nuclearization of the Indian Subcontinent, the rise and fall and, at least in Turkey, subsequent rise of Islamist political parties. Add to all this the attacks of 9/11 and the subsequent War on Terror—the pivotal events that launched the present century—and it would not be an exaggeration to say that the countries of the Middle East are undergoing a period of tumult and transformation unlike anything since the end of the colonial era.
Of all the forces that have shaped the literary landscape of the region over the past few decades, none has had a greater impact than globalization. The steady rise in literacy and education around the world, the mass migration of peoples across increasingly porous borders, the interconnectedness of sovereign states, the introduction of new communication technologies such as the Internet (which has accelerated the transmission of knowledge and information even more than the printing press): all of these have profoundly influenced the writers of the Middle East. As the distance between these nations recedes—even as their citizens grow more culturally distinct and more confident in their national identity—the literature of this vast and varied region has also become increasingly borderless. Arabs read Orhan Pamuk in Arabic while Turks devour Naguib Mahfouz in Turkish. As a literary language, Persian is second only to Urdu in Pakistan, while Urdu ghazals are available in Persian translations throughout Iran. Nor does the interchange stop there. Across oceans and continents, globalization has spurred the rest of the world toward far broader access to translations of these same works.
At the start of the twenty-first century, the literature of the Middle East remains as unique and vibrant as it was at the beginning of the twentieth century, when the Arab poet Khalil Gibran urged his fellow writers not to imitate the literary styles of the West but instead to strive to develop indigenous literary narratives that could stand on their own merits. That is indeed the task of this next generation of poets and writers, who, while building upon the vast archive of work produced by their literary forebears, are nevertheless not as preoccupied as the previous generation with using literature as a weapon against Western imperialism. Amid the shifting national and cultural associations that mark this new, globalized world, the writers included in this final section are more concerned with self-reflection as a means of reassessing the cultural history of the Middle East. And so, just as the world is slowly becoming borderless, so too will this final section of our collection remain without borders—one writer passing the baton to the next, free of all ethnic or nationalist divisions yet bound together by a shared sense of historical consciousness.
If the purpose of literature is to provide a window into other worlds, then the individual pieces collected in this anthology are mere porthole glimpses into the kaleidoscopic world of the modern Middle East. As Roger Allen, professor of Arabic literature, once wrote, “Literary histories also have their own history.” That is certainly true with regard to the literature of a region as complex and ever-shifting as the Middle East. It means also that, like any history, this one will be studied, debated, and built upon for many years to come.