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Jabra Ibrahim Jabra In Search of Walid Masoud Roger Allen, Adnan Haydar, trs. Syracuse, N.Y. Syracuse University Press 2000. 289 pages. $26.95 ISBN 0-8156-0646-x
EVEN THOUGH THE overriding theme in this novel appears to be the search for the protagonist Walid Masoud, who had disappeared suddenly, in reality a wide range of themes emerge: a critique of the political and cultural conditions in the modern Arab world, the alienation and exile of the intellectuals living under such conditions, and the necessity of commitment to a noble cause, among others. In fact, a close look at the conversations among the characters of the novel, who constitute a group of intellectuals, writers, and artists (both men and women), reveals that the topics they cover are innumerable.
Of course, such themes have always preoccupied Arab writers before and after the publication of this work, as in the various novels of Abdulrahman Munif, al-Subbar (1976; Eng. Wild Thorns, 1985) by Sahar Khalifeh, the autobiography of Nawal El Saadawi (originally published in -1988), Mamlakat al-Ghurabn' (1993; Eng. The Kingdom of Strangers, 1996) by Elias Khoury, 'A'id ila al-Quds (Returning to Jerusalem; 1998) by Issa Boullata, or Saba (1998; Eng. Seven, 1999) by Ghazi Algoasaibi. In fact, many such authors have personally gone through detention or imprisonment for their political views, whether by their...