This volume started off as a collection of short stories by the younger writers in Egypt who were now contributing to the Arabic short story. Gradually, however, I realized that so far no one had sought to put together a collection of stories that tried to represent the short story from the time when it first appeared in Egypt right up until today.
Having studied Arabic at both the newly set-up School of Oriental Studies at London University (it was later to have the words “and African” added to its title) and then at Cambridge University—this just before the beginning of the Second World War—I came across no one in academic circles who seemed to be aware that a revolution had occurred in Arabic literature. With scarcely anyone noticing or caring, Arabic literature had suddenly turned toward the west and adopted some of the genres of writing that were peculiar to it, such as the novel and, more particularly, the short story. It is strange that neither in the west itself nor in the Arab world did anyone show any real interest in this phenomenon, though when in 1946 I produced the first translated volume of Arabic short stories, by Mahmoud Teymour, none other than the secretary general of the newly formed Arab League, Abdul Rahman Azzam, wrote a short introduction to it. Having produced this volume, I was later to become aware that the short story was also being practiced in other Arab countries apart from Egypt and I began working on a volume of short stories that was to represent this genre as practiced in the Arab world. The stories for such a volume were available for some years before I eventually found a publisher for it in England. It is, I think, significant that the publisher that I eventually succeeded in finding, Oxford University Press, would consider putting the volume into print only if it was introduced by a top academic figure. The volume received scant attention in the English-speaking world and none at all in the Arab world. In fact, I understand that not a single Arab government or institution purchased a single copy, so the first edition of the book was remaindered and the copies were sold off to a publisher in Beirut, who turned them into a paperback edition.
Was nobody able to recognize that the volume contained stories of real worth by such writers as Naguib Mahfouz (who was later to be awarded the Nobel Prize) and such talents as Yusuf Idris and Tayeb Salih? How, too, was it that the Arab world, which now boasts some of the most lucrative prizes for writers, simply ignored the appearance of such a volume and it required a British publisher, Heinemann, to have the courage—without assistance from any Arab quarter—to produce a series of translations under the title ‘Arab Authors’? In this respect it is interesting to note that in his book about Cairo the accomplished writer and journalist Max Rodenbeck stated that he had never once, when traveling daily by train from his home in the suburb of Maadi to the center of Cairo, seen an Egyptian read a book unless it be a copy of the Qur’an. There thus seemed to be little hope for any Egyptian writer who chose to take up short-story writing as a profession.
It took some time before the step was taken by the American University in Cairo (AUC) Press to start paying translators to produce English-language editions of modern Arabic writing. Today the AUC Press publishes some fifteen translations of Arabic fiction in English a year. Many of these titles then find their way into other languages such as French, Italian, and Spanish, as well as into such non-European languages as Korean and Japanese. And all this has been accomplished within the term of one lifetime.
While the first ever volume of Egyptian short stories in an English translation was published by me in 1946, and my next volume of short stories from the Arab world did not appear until 1967, in the meantime short stories in Egypt were being published in Arabic in various magazines, and the occasional volume was produced. During those early years I published English translations of short stories by several Egyptian writers such as Yusuf Gohar, Yusuf Sharouni, and Mahmoud Badawi; mostly, however, they were broadcast over Egyptian State Broadcasting radio. I still have several scripts, badly typed by myself, marked with the date and time when the story was broadcast and the name of the person who read the story and certified as “Passed by Censor,” followed by a rough signature and date, Unfortunately, over the years many of these scripts have become lost among the myriad papers that I have carried around with me on my travels.
I was particularly delighted to find that I still possess a somewhat tattered copy of a volume of short stories entitled Anwar (Lights) by Mohammed Afifi. The volume, published in 1946, is of particular interest in that it includes an important introduction of some fifty pages dealing with the Egyptian short story as it was being written at that time. In it the author deals with the work of such writers as Ibrahim al-Mazini, Tawfiq al-Hakim, and Mahmoud Teymour. The introduction deals in the main with the important question of the language in which the Arabic short story should be written. “Logic demands that a man should write in the language he speaks,” the author states, “though there are those who say the opposite, namely that the Egyptian should speak in the language in which he writes.”
Reading this sentence immediately reminded me of a discussion I once had with Mahmoud Teymour on the general subject of the Arabic language and the difficulty presented by the fact of there being two separate languages, one for writing and one for speech. I remember him saying to me: “If God gives us life we shall see that in a matter of fifty years all Egyptians will be speaking the classical language.” The truth, however, is that exactly the opposite has happened: more and more writers are employing the spoken language in their novels and short stories, and we see more and more advertisements in newspapers and on hoardings employing the spoken form. Let us face it: the first objective in writing an advertisement is that it should be widely understood.
Among the interesting quotations that Afifi reproduces in Anwar on the subject of language is one by Ahmed Zaki to the effect that the classical language must change so that it deals with the demands of this age: if it does not, then time itself will take its revenge, as has happened with all the other languages that have refused to change and adapt, the outstanding example being Latin.
Mohammed Afifi includes among his selection of stories two that were written wholly in the spoken language; one of these. “The Place of Prayer,” I have translated and included in this volume. Afifi says that while these were not the first short stories to be written in the spoken language, it was the first time that such stories found their way into print. Today, most writers of fiction in Egypt feel that the classical language should be kept for the narrative and that dialog should be in the spoken vernacular.
How else has the situation changed since those early days when the Arabic short story first came into being? More stories are appearing than previously, and there are more people interested in modern Arabic literature and more people able to translate it into English. As for the quality, writers like Yusuf Idris, who died in 1991, remains to my mind as competent a writer of short stories as any of the writers of today. Freedom of expression and subject matter are wider today, and women writers of short stories—though at one time they scarcely existed—are almost as numerous as men. While my first volume of short stories, published in 1967, contained just one story by a woman writer, my last volume of stories from the Arab world, Under the Naked Sky, published in 2000 by the AUC Press, contained among its thirty pieces no less than eight by women.
Because in the early days the Egyptian public had little interest in the novel and the short story, Egyptian writers of fiction, if their work was published at all, could not expect to profit financially from the sales of their books. It quickly became apparent that Arabic writers, if they were to make money from their writing, would do so only if it appeared in translation. So being in those early days virtually the sole person producing translations in English of Arabic fiction, I was approached more than once by Egyptian writers with the request that I undertake a translation of one of their works. In return they offered me any profits that ensued from the book when published and that additionally they would pay me an initial fee for translating the book.
In those early days no publisher was in a position to pay out extra money to a translator. The normal practice was therefore for the writer and the translator to be paid an equal percentage of such profits as there were from the sales of the book when published. In this manner the writer gained a little extra for the work of writing the book, while the translator was rewarded for his efforts in translating it. Additionally, of course, once the book had been translated into English, it was more likely to be translated into some other language, or even into several other languages.
Happily the days when translators were scarce and when there was no money with which to pay translators are now over. Translators from the Arabic can now expect to be paid an advance fee for their work and can even bargain for a share of the royalties from the sale of the book. So the position of translations of modern Arabic literature has completely changed since the middle of the last century: it is now recognized that an Arab writer can produce a book that proves itself to be a bestseller when translated into another language.
In one other respect changes have occurred in the short story since it was first practised in Egypt in the early years of the last century: readers, writers, and critics have all become much more liberal in their outlook concerning the content of modern Arabic fiction today, especially in relation to matters of sex or bodily functions. I well remember passing on to my friend Mahmoud Teymour a short story by Yusuf Sharouni that included a description of a donkey making its way along a street while urinating, making a pattern in the sand. I was surprised to find my friend returning the story to me, expressing his opinion that this particular detail, which I found harmless enough, should be excluded from the story if it came to be published.
One can only be delighted at the way in which modern Arabic literature is today being read in translation throughout the world, and at the remarkably short time in which this has been achieved.