Books by Marilyn Booth (translator)
“It spans a period of around ten years, starting before the revolution and ending after it. It’s told through the perspective of the central character, Layla, and follows her coming of age in the context of bourgeois Egyptian family life, which is shown to be simultaneously stultifying and oppressive for independent-minded women. Layla is beset on all sides by people who undermine her in different ways…Everything changes as Layla becomes involved with the revolutionary moment following 1952 when, to put it very simply, Nasser and his Free Officers’ movement overthrew the king and the vestiges of the British Empire, ushering in a moment of national rebirth for Egypt and the beginning of a truly post-colonial era.” Read more...
The Best 20th-Century Arab Novels
Raphael Cormack, Literary Scholar
Interviews where books by Marilyn Booth (translator) were recommended
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1
The Book of Khalid
by Ameen Rihani -
2
The Open Door
by Latifa al-Zayyat & Marilyn Booth (translator) -
3
Season of Migration to the North
by Tayeb Salih and Denys Johnson-Davies (translator) -
4
The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist
by Emile Habiby & Trevor LeGassick and Salma Khadra Jayyusi (translators) -
5
Wild Thorns
by Sahar Khalifeh & Trevor Le Gassick and Elizabeth Fernea (translators)
The Best 20th-Century Arab Novels, recommended by Raphael Cormack
The Best 20th-Century Arab Novels, recommended by Raphael Cormack
Whether it’s a tragic novel set in post-indepedence Sudan or picaresque stories about a Palestinian living in Israel after 1948, many of the key Arab novels of the 20th century are available in English. Raphael Cormack, a professor of Arabic studies at Durham University, talks us through five novels from a variety of countries that explore different themes and trends in the evolution of the novel in the Arabic-speaking world.
