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Edward Al-Kharrat, a Pioneer of Innovative Narrative Prose Writing: Beginnings
Abstract
This study deals with the short stories of Edward al-Kharrat (b. 1926) during the early stages of his writing career, which officially began at the end of the 1950s. The article will deal with the atmosphere, the contents and the novel aspects of his writing as reflected in his first three story collections, Hitan aliya (High Walls, 1959), Saat al-kibriyaa (Hours of Pride , 1972) and Mahattat al-sikka al-hadeed ( The Train Station , 1955–84), against the background of the changes that were taking place in the Arab world at the time, as well as changes that occurred in the concepts and functions of literature and in the strategies of narration.
In his move away from traditional narratives that were represented at that time by the novelist Naguib Mahfouz (1911–2006), al-Kharrat's stories tended more and more to delve into the depths of the soul and to focus on existentialist and metaphysical issues, and, as a result, he was forced into changing his storytelling strategies and reducing external narratives in favor of introspection, dreams and imagination, as well as using language that relied on metaphor and attained a nearly poetic character. All these elements together contributed to convulsing “reality,” which in al-Kharrat's writings became different, discontinuous and unclear.
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Notes
Arab critics attributed the term “realist novel” to most of the Arabic novels written from the thirties to the fifties of the last century (Allen, 1995: 120–121; al-Musawi, 1988: 106–107; Taha Badr, 1968: 397–401). Writers considered the Arabic novel in such a period as a tool for reform and, hence, proposed issues of society, independence, freedom, equality and many others with which the Arab society was occupied in that period. Their literary work turned to be mobilized and committed, and exposed to the big collective events, while the novel hero is derived from the casual life and resembled characters from “reality.” The events also resembled external “reality” and the traditional form of the novel meshed very well with these relatively stable conditions, despite the wars and revolutions that did not lead to great changes in the society (al-Musawi, 1988: 107). However, the Arab novelists, headed by al-Kharrat, renounced the “realistic novel,” since they felt that it did not meet the needs and aspirations of the narrative writing in rapidly changing conditions and the modern channels of communication, as well as the pressing global culture (Allen, 1995: 121). The innovative writing, led by al-Kharrat and others, was characterized by protest and treatment of individual and metaphysical issues and received the terms “new realism” and “psychological realism” (al-Musawai, 1988: 107), since it shifted the focus from the external event to the psychological internal world with all the consequences of visions, techniques, and tools.
Mahfouz differed from other Arab novelists of that period in his abundant output, the attention he paid to social developments, and his increasing tendency towards a realistic style of writing. Between 1945 and 1949 he published five novels: al-Qahira al-jadeeda (Modern Cairo), Khan al-Khalili (Khan El-Khalili), Zuqaq al-madaqq (Madaqq Alley), al-Sarab (The Mirage) and Bidaya wa-nihaya (The Beginning and the End). All these stories take place in modern Cairo and depict the lives of ordinary people. They are dominated by a pessimistic outlook that bespeaks a social protest against the old regime. See Somekh (1973: 65–100).
Somekh (1973: 108).
See Allen (1995: 121).
Barada (1996: 27).
See al-Musawi (1999: 70–71).
See: Draz (1981: 137), al-Musawi (1999: 108), Allen (1995: 59).
Barada (1996: 27).
For an account of the changes in the concept of “realism” see Jackobson (1971: 38–46).
See al-Kharrat (1995b: 39); see also al-Kharrat (1995a).
See al-Hawary (1992).
See Awadalla (1989).
Allen (1995: 58).
On this issue see Hafiz (1992: 34–35).
In this study we used the Dar al-aadab edition: al-Kharrat (1990a).
In this study we used the Dar al-aadab edition: al-Kharrat (1990c).
Shimon Ballas (1984: 163) notes that killing in the streets alludes to political assassinations carried out by intelligence organizations.
See, for example, the collection Ikhtinaqat al-ishq wal-sabah (Suffocations of Love and Morning) (al-Kharrat, 1992).
In this study we used the Dar al-aadab edition: al-Kharrat (1990b).
According to Sabri Hafiz the space of the train station symbolizes the womb and the moment of birth while the scream is an allusion to birth, the scream of a human being who is being forced out into the maze of the world. See Hafiz (1986: 74–75).
Ballas (1993: 33, 36).
Al-Kharrat (1992).