Arab women's writing in the modern age began with 'A'isha al-Taymuriya, Warda al-Yaziji, Zaynab Fawwaz, and other nineteenth-century pioneers in Egypt and the Levant. This unique study-first published in Arabic in 2004-looks at the work of those pioneers and then traces the development of Arab women's literature through the end of the twentieth century, and also includes a meticulously researched, comprehensive bibliography of writing by Arab women. In the first section, in nine essays that cover the Arab Middle East from Morocco to Iraq and Syria to Yemen, critics and writers from the Arab...

Rama and the Dragon, a multi-layered novel about the depths of human experience and the struggle between polarities, on the surface presents a love story of unrequited passion between Rama the symbol of multiplicity and creativity and Mikhail the symbol of unity and constancy. Their story reflects the relationship not only between man and woman, Copt and Muslim, but also between Upper and Lower Egypt. Through a delicate grid of intertextual references and juxtaposed narratives, the dreams and hopes, fears and defeats of Rama and Mikhail move from the local to the global, corresponding to...

Friendship, though esteemed, has not been central in critical studies. It has been overshadowed by other bonding relationships. However, it figures as a privileged theme in classical, medieval, renaissance, and modern philosophy. More recently, sociological, anthropological, and psychological studies have explored the varied dimensions of friendship. Different cultures view friendship in various perspectives that intersect, contrast, and echo each other. In Middle Eastern, East Asian, European, and American thought, philosophers, jurists, and creative writers have explored the idea of...