This distinguished anthology presents for the first time in English travel essays by Arabic writers who have visited America in the second half of the century. The view of America which emerges from these accounts is at once fascinating and illuminating, but never monolithic. The writers hail from a variety of viewpoints, regions, and backgrounds, so their descriptions of America differently engage and revise Arab pre-conceptions of Americans and the West. The country figures as everything from the unchanging Other, the very antithesis of the Arab self, to the seductive female, to the Other...

In this unique book, Kamal Abdel-Malek probes into the various situations where Arab and Jew encounter each other in the modern Palestinian fiction, poetry, and film. The book explores the violent confrontations and moments of reconciliation in these encounters. In its bold survey of these encounters, the book does not shy away from presenting the banality of evil while at the same time it unapologetically celebrates the triumphal and radiant feats of the human spirit when blood-enemies recognize their common humanity.

This volume is a fascinating, interpretative study of the life of the Prophet Muḥammad as depicted in the repertoire of fifty-one contemporary Egyptian singers. The repertoire is extremely diverse and ranges from narrative ballads, classical odes, and Qur'ānic chantings, to melodies of the secular songs of well-known Egyptian singers. The 'people's' Muḥammad appears as both a commanding figure, empowered by the supernatural, and a touchingly vulnerable human being, and provides this study with excellent material for its discussion of a subject that has not received much...

The collection of essays contained in this volume is written by a group of prominent scholars of Arabic literature. They explore various manifestations of traditional as well as modern and postmodern themes and techniques in Arabic literature.
This is the first time the tripartite concepts of tradition, modernity, and postmodernity in Arabic literary works are explored and analyzed in one volume. It illustrates very clearly the fact that Arabic literature has kept abreast not only of the primarily modern literary movements in the West - that is amply illustrated by many studies to date -...