Sebastian Gadomski

Translation of literature is not only a linguistic challenge, but it means also the ability to find readable equivalents describing an existential experience in foreign culture code. The article raises issues of translation in relation to Arabic literature, which in the cultural perspective is relatively distant to a Polish reader. In the first part, the authors mention the most important examples of translations of Arabic literary works into Polish ranging from baroque to modernity. They draw attention to the main trends that Polish translators followed and point to the basic problems, which they had to face. The second part of the article refers to the authors’ own experience in translation. It presents the short analysis of the phenomena, which are, in their opinion the biggest challenges in translational work on the Arabic literary texts.
 

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. 

The studies and monographs published over the years leave no doubt as to the great significance of Shakespeare’s works for Arabic drama and theatre. The Lebanese writer Michail Nuayma went so far as to say “Shakespeare remains a Ka’ba to which we make pilgrimages, and a Qib-
la to which we turn in prayer.” No doubt the words of one of the leading writers of Syrian-
-American school cause huge surprise and even consternation. At the same time they encourage us to reflect on the ways of reading and interpreting Shakespearean drama in the Arab world.
This article aims to show the reception of William Shakespeare’s plays in Arab theatre starting from first attempts of staging his works until their contemporary interpretations and attempts to formulate a response to the question of what has made Shakespeare remain continuously one of the closest Western playwrights to the Arab culture for more than a century.

 

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.