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Al-Ahram Weekly 4 -10 February 1999 Issue No. 415 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 4 -10 February 1999 Issue No. 415
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Book Fair Economy Opinion Culture Features Living Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters The context of a master
Naguib Mahfouz once said of Youssef Idris (1927-1991) that he was "a man strange in the way he lived, strange in what he wrote". It may have been Idris's tempestuous, multi-faceted life that Mahfouz was referring to, or the fact that he remained intent on introducing echoes of colloquial Arabic into the standard language. As the eminent critic Farouq Abdel-Qader points out, however, colloquial Arabic was not the only vernacular strain that ran through Idris's writing. His works were often populated by a new kind of protagonist: the abject fellah, the unemployed worker, the street child, the hustler and the prostitute. And the magnitude of Idris's achievement, as the critic clearly shows, can only be fully appreciated in relation to the history of society as a whole and its relentless transformations. "Youssef excelled at describing the group," writes Abdel-Qader, "projecting its movement which transcends and includes the movement of the individual, but acquires its own special logic, a 'group' logic." But Idris does not stop there. He also explores the individual as an independent force. For Idris, "the individual is part of the group, but it is in the light of the relationship between the individual and the group that the meaning of heroism emerges..."
Like most other commentators, Abdel-Qader considers Idris the short story writer par excellence, and the form's most distinguished virtuoso, contending that his achievement is best assessed through an examination of his short fiction. The originality of his approach lies rather in the fact that Abdel-Qader reads the short stories in their socio-political context, and never fails to contribute new and illuminating insights drawn from the life of Idris himself, first as a physician, a struggling author and a political activist, and finally as a well-established, widely-acclaimed literary figure who enjoyed a successful career, managing to achieve both wealth and influence long before the end of his life. "There is no doubt that Youssef Idris's personal constitution," writes Abdel-Qader, "that mixture of restlessness, rebellion, inability to concentrate on the same thing for too long, and consistent refusal to compromise... is the reason behind his brilliance as a short story writer, for the art of the short story is the art of capturing a moment, a fleeting thought, an image. It is also a perfectly flexible art... and Youssef Idris benefited from all this..."
In the three chapters of his book, Abdel-Qader traces the development of Idris's fictional world through his 13 published collections of short stories: Arkhas Layali (The Cheapest Nights, 1954), Gomhoriyat Farahat (Farahat's Republic, 1956), Alaysa Kadhalic (Isn't It So, 1957), Hadithat Sharaf (An Incident of Honour, 1958), Akhir Al-Donya (The End of the World, 1961), Al-Askary Al-Aswad (The Black Guard, 1962), Lughat Al-Ayay (The Language of Ayay, 1965), Al-Naddaha (The Siren, 1969), Beit min Lahm (A House of Flesh, 1972), Ana Sultan Qanoun Al-Wogoud (I am Sultan, the Law of Existence, 1980), Iqtulha (Kill Her, 1982) and Al-Atab Ala Al-Nazar (Forgive me for not Seeing, 1987). Some have disagreed with Abdel-Qader's insistence on viewing Idris's literary and aesthetic achievements in constant relation to socio-political questions, yet, all things considered, his book offers a comprehensive and probing account not only of Idris's contribution to his chosen genre, but also of the historical period during which Idris produced his work -- and, to a certain extent, of Idris himself.
Indeed, the three inter-related angles from which Abdel-Qader chooses to view the stories -- the relation of the individual to the group, women and sex in rural and urban environments, and Egyptian socio-political developments from the Revolution of 1952 to the 1967 War -- are perhaps his most interesting contribution to Idris scholarship. They represent a fortunate choice of approach, and one for which readers and writers alike should be thankful.
