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Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis

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Volume 21, Issue 1

Współczesna literatura arabska

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Licence: CC BY 4.0 licence icon

Editorial team

Editor-in-Chief Katarzyna Bazarnik

Zastępca redaktor naczelnej / sekretarz Natalia Palich

Issue Editors Barbara Michalska-Pikulska, Sebastian Gadomski

Issue content

Jousef Sh’hadeh

Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis, Volume 21, Issue 1, First View (2026)

This article examines the symbolic and emotional constructions of Beirut in the poetry of Nizār Qabbānī and Maḥmūd Darwīš, two of the most influential voices in modern Arabic literature. Beirut emerges not merely as a geographical location but as a contested cultural and emotional space, at once a beloved woman, a fragile homeland, and a stage for political upheavals. Through metaphor and symbolism, Qabbānī transforms Beirut into an emblem of desire, femininity, and loss, while Darwīš approaches it as a site of exile, dispossession, and collective memory. Both poets rely on recurring motifs such as the tent and the star to articulate the dialectic between despair and hope, captivity and freedom. The article further demonstrates that while Qabbānī and Darwīš differ in their perceptions of Beirut from various perspectives, they converge in certain aspects of their symbolic and emotional portrayals, revealing a complex and multifaceted literary engagement with the city.
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Sherif El-Gayyar

Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis, Volume 21, Issue 1, First View (2026)

This article analyzes Mohamed El-Fakharani’s novel A Pause… for Amazement” فاصل للدهشة) Fāṣil li-l-dahsha) (2006) as a narrative exploration of Egypt’s marginalized communities amid the socio-political turmoil of the early 21st century. The novel portrays the collapse of traditional values, the erosion of the middle class, and the emergence of a distorted social order rooted in poverty, oppression, and nihilism. Through cinematic narration, montage-like structures, and intermingling of genres, El-Fakharany depicts the slums as spaces where survival overrides morality, and where sex, violence, and rebellion serve as distorted expressions of existence. The characters—Hilal, Badri, Hussein, Farawla, and others—embody crushed identities seeking meaning within a decayed reality. Women emerge as both victims of patriarchal exploitation and voices of resistance, particularly through the journalist Samah, whose writings foreshadow revolutionary change. Ultimately, the novel reflects an aesthetic rebellion that transforms marginalized realities into central literary discourse, blending artistic experimentation with social critique.
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Sebastian Gadomski

Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis, Volume 21, Issue 1, First View (2026)

The emergence of new trends in world theatre, the rise in popularity of experimental theatre, and the socio-political situation in the Arab world at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s made the issue of Arab cultural distinctiveness in theatre one of the top priorities. An key element of the new vision of theatre was ta’ṣīl – the rooting or establishing of the origins of Arab theatre. The search for originality and the roots of Arab theatre drew on a broadly understood cultural heritage. The complex process of grounding Arab theatre in tradition was reflected not only in theatrical performances, but also in theatrical theories and manifestos. This article seeks to present selected concepts concerning the identity of Arab theatre. It focuses on the most significant visions of theatre in the history of the modern Arab stage, exploring the search for its original form and attempts to anchor it in its native cultural heritage.
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Mariam Elmasyan

Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis, Volume 21, Issue 1, First View (2026)

The article examines of ʿAlāʾ al-Aswānī’s ʿImārat Yaʿqūbīān (The Yacoubian Building, 2002) from the perspective of narrative fragmentation and polyphony and focalization within the broader development of Modern Arabic Novel in both thematic concerns and its compositional aesthetics. Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the polyphonic novel and Gerard Genette’s theory of focalization, it argues that al-Aswānī’s fragmented structure and shifting perspectives produce a polyphonic narrative that reflects the social, political, and ideological disintegration of postcolonial Egyptian society. Rather than relying on a single unifying narrative authority, the novel constructs a plurality of autonomous voices whose interaction gradually produces a wider image of Egyptian reality. In this way, aristocratic nostalgia, class humiliation, moral compromise, religiosity, desire and corruption are mediated through distinct yet interconnected character’s words that do not converge into a single ideological truth. The article shows that novel’s complex compositional strategies, particularly multiplicity, and fragmentation, are essential not only to its form but also exemplifies broader contemporary tendencies on modern Arabic fiction toward plural, fractured modes of representing reality in an age of socio-political disillusionment.
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Magdalena Kubarek

Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis, Volume 21, Issue 1, First View (2026)

The article examines the portrayal of female characters in the novel Ḥarb al-kalb aṯ-ṯāniya (The Second War of the Dog) by Ibrāhīm Naṣr Allāh (Ibrahim Nasrallah, b. 1954). The violence depicted in the novel can be interpreted in two ways: on the one hand, as a representation of national martyrdom, and on the other, as a reflection on the anxieties of modernity. Building on this observation, I suggest that the civilizational crisis presented in the novel transcends the Palestinian context, thereby opening the text to interpretation through the lens of ecofeminism. In this regard, Naṣr Allāh’s perspective aligns closely with the ideas of Fritjof Capra, who identifies anthropocentrism and androcentrism as the root causes of the civilizational crisis. Consequently, it becomes evident that a meaningful resolution cannot be achieved without transforming the conventional paradigm of masculinity and granting women a more prominent role in shaping a new social order.
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Barbara Michalak-Pikulska

Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis, Volume 21, Issue 1, First View (2026)

The novel Sindirīllāt Masqaṭ (Cinderellas of Muscat) by Ḥuda Ḥamad represents a significant contribution to contemporary Omani literature, offering profound insight into the relationship between tradition and modernity in Oman. The author constructs a fictional world deeply rooted in the realities of local society, skillfully employing intertextual parallels, such as the classic Cinderella motif. 

Through a fusion of realism and elements of fantasy, Ḥamad grants her protagonists the status of symbolic princesses. However, their transformation proves fleeting— the metaphorical stroke of midnight inevitably returns the heroines to the constraints of everyday life. These modern Cinderellas are forced to marginalize their personal aspirations in the face of family pressure and rigorous social expectations. 

By weaving reality with literary fantasy, Ḥamad addresses key existential and sociological issues: the process of entering adulthood, the crisis of the traditional institution of marriage, and the evolving perception of maternal roles. Consequently, this narrative serves as a compelling portrait of a society undergoing a phase of rapid cultural transformation. Ḥamad proves that the modern-day Cinderellas of Muscat are tragic figures, suspended between the dream of emancipation and loyalty to traditional structures.

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