Barbara Michalak-Pikulska

Nağīb Maḥfūẓ remains most often identifi ed with literary prose creativity, which clearly dominated his artistic output. We rarely reminisce about his dramatic works, and we  occasionally return to the fi lms that came out of his scripts. However, as we read in the memoirs of the Egyptian Nobel Prize winner, fi lm was his fi rst great passion. Maḥfūẓ, adoring the cinema, never wanted to become part of the world of the tenth muse and, incidentally, met in 1947 with the director Ṣalāḥ Abū Sayf, who offered him a collaboration. The romance of the famous Cairo Trilogy’s writer with the world of cinema lasted until 1959, bringing fruit in nearly thirty scenarios. Most of them brought popularity not so much to Maḥfūẓ himself as to the directors and actors who were cast in the main roles. Films such as Al-Fitiwwa, Ğa’alūnī muğriman, Al-Muḏnibūn or Rayā wa-Sakīna are considered to be the most important achievements of the Egyptian cinematography. This paper attempts to look critically at Nağīb Maḥfūẓ’s fi lm output by placing scripts of the Egyptian Nobel Prize winner in the context of his literary prose. 

Article entitled Identity in Literary Output and Cultural Life in Oman is a kind of Introduction in showing the beginnings of the cultural activities through establishing Cultural Clubs and newspapers in Oman in 20th century. It presents names of Omani prose writers and poets dealing with Identity in their literary output. Among them: Abū Muslim al-Bahlānī, Abū Surūr Ḥamīd al-Ğāmi‘ī, ‘Abd Allah aṭ-Ṭā’ī, Ḥamad ibn Rashīd ibn Rāšid and others. For them identity became one of the aims in their literary output to define history, language, culture and religion.

Modern Emirati Literature written by Woman Writers

The development of prose in the United Arab Emirates occurred much later than in other Gulf
Countries. The local press started to develop only at the end of the 1960s. ‘Abd Allah Saqr
Ahmad was the author of a short story Qulub la tarham (Merciless Hearts) published at the end
of the 1960s and the first collection of short stories in the history of Emirate literature entitled
al-Khashaba (A Piece of Wood). The first literary attempts of the young generation of Emirate
writers were published within the pages of the following periodicals: an-Nasr, az-Zamalik, ash-
Shabab, al-Ahli. On the market appeared the journal al-Ittihad, the weekly Akhbar Dubayy and
the monthly al-Majma’. The first stage of modern Emirate literature is constituted by a group of
writers who started to publish their works in the years 1972–1975. Among them: ‘Ali ‘Ubayd
‘Ali, Muhammad ‘Ali al-Mirri, ‘Abd al-Aziz Khalil as well as ‘Abd al-Hamid Ahmad and
Muhammad al-Murr.
In the Emirates women publish their works alongside men. The most renowned names
include: Shaikha Mubarak an-Nakhi, Salma Matar Yusuf, Layla Ahmad, Maryam Jam‘a Faraj
or Amina ‘Abd Allah Bu Shihab. New generation is represented by: Basima Muhammad Yunis,
Su‘ad al-‘Arimi, Asma’ az-Zar‘uni, Ibtisam al-Mu‘alla and Rawda al-Balushi. Their short
stories concern social matters i.e. the marriage of underage girls, the lack of respect for the
opinions and aspirations of the young. What is more, in those stories we notice attempts at
new topics connected with the introduction of a new life style which in turn is related to the
economic and financial changes caused by the discovery of crude oil.

There has been a long debate about the origins of science fiction literature in Egypt. Scholars debate who was the first writer to include motifs of the genre, who made references to it and sought inspiration in it. It is commonly assumed that the beginnings of science fiction in Egypt date back to the late forties or early fifties of the last century, and Taufīq al-Ḥakīm and Yūsuf ‘Izz ad-Dīn ‘Īsàare mentioned as pioneers of the genre. But were they definitely the first writers who alluded to science fiction in their literary works? Did this literary genre in Egypt really appear in the 1940s or 1950s? Drawing on the latest studies, the authors of the article attempt to answer these questions and bring the beginnings of science fiction literature in Egypt closer to the fore. They also seek to highlight the importance of the first examples of SF literature in Egypt and their role in promoting the new literary genre in the country.