Salih Saeed Ba-Amer (born 1946) is a Yemeni short story writer. [1] He was born in Hadhramaut province. His story Dancing by the Light of the Moon has been translated into English and was included in a 1988 anthology of modern Arabian literature (edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi).
Fable is a literary genre defined as a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral lesson, which may at the end be added explicitly as a concise maxim or saying.
One Thousand and One Nights is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the Arabian Nights, from the first English-language edition, which rendered the title as The Arabian Nights' Entertainment.
Arabic literature is the writing, both as prose and poetry, produced by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is Adab, which is derived from a meaning of etiquette, and which implies politeness, culture and enrichment.
Arabic epic literature encompasses epic poetry and epic fantasy in Arabic literature. Virtually all societies have developed folk tales encompassing tales of heroes. Although many of these are legends, many are based on real events and historical figures.
In contemporary literary studies, a theme is a central topic, subject, or message within a narrative. Themes can be divided into two categories: a work's thematic concept is what readers "think the work is about" and its thematic statement being "what the work says about the subject". Themes are often distinguished from premises.
Islamic literature is literature written by Muslim people, influenced by an Islamic cultural perspective, or literature that portrays Islam. It can be written in any language and portray any country or region. It includes many literary forms including adabs, a non-fiction form of Islamic advice literature, and various fictional literary genres.
New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in 1882, is a collection of short stories previously published in magazines between 1877 and 1880. The collection contains Stevenson's first published fiction, and a few of the stories are considered by some critics to be his best work, as well as pioneering works in the English-language short story tradition.
Hamza Shehata (1910/11-1971/72) was a philosopher, poet and civic leader from the Hejaz in the western part of modern Saudi Arabia. The eccentric Hejazi genius was born in Mecca and raised in Jeddah. He studied at the Al-Falah School, then moved to India where he worked at the Zainal trading house for a number of years. Upon his return, he joined the Jeddah Council of Commerce.
Raja'a Alem is a Saudi Arabian novelist from Mecca/Hejaz.
Elements of the supernatural and the fantastic were an element of literature from its beginning, though the idea of a distinct genre, in the modern sense, is less than two centuries old.
Mayfa' Abdel Rahman al-Qiyadi was a Yemeni short story writer and journalist. He studied at the Gorky Institute in Moscow and obtained an MA in 1982. He is known for his short stories which explore the social and political realities of Yemen. His first collection of short stories appeared in 1975, followed by a second one in 1983. His work has appeared in English translation in a 1988 anthology called The Literature of Modern Arabia.
Abd al-Karim al-Razihi is a Yemeni poet. His first book of poems was titled The Need for a Second Heaven and an Additional Hell. He worked at the Yemeni Ministry of Culture in Sanaa, and edited the magazine Al-Yaman al-Jadid.
Abd al-Majeed al-Qadi is a Yemeni playwright and writer. His work is notable for its engagement with social problems that afflict Yemen. His first two plays were called Al-Daudahi's Daughter and Young Man Mansour. His short story, "The Final Ring", has been translated into English and appeared in a 1988 anthology on modern Arabian literature.
Muhammad Abdallah Muthanna is a Yemeni novelist, playwright and short story writer. He was born in Hudaida and was educated in Cairo. In the 1970s, he was jailed several times by the authorities for his activities as a political dissident. He has worked in journalism as well as in government. He is a prolific writer of fiction and drama and is well known for his short stories, which have been translated into English and Italian. His first collection of stories, entitled Fi giawf al-layl, came out in 1976. Subsequent collections include Al-jabal yabtasim aydan (1978) and Rihlat al-umr (2002). In 1990, he won an Arabic short story award presented in Alexandria, Egypt.
Saeed Aulaqi is a Yemeni dramatist and fiction writer. His story "The Succession" has been translated into English and was anthologized in two anthologies published in the West. As a playwright, he has tackled revolutionary themes and published a number of plays:
Siba'i Ahmad Uthman is a Saudi journalist, author and short story writer. He was born in 1938 in the Sudan and studied at the College of Arts in Khartoum before commencing a career in journalism. Among Uthman's works are several volumes of short stories including Silence and the Walls and Circles in the Book of Time. His short story Silence and the Walls appeared in English translation in a 1988 anthology of Arabian literature edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi.
Kamal Haydar (1933–1980) was a short story writer from southern Yemen. He was noted for his stories that dealt with social issues in Yemen. He published a collection of his short stories, Signpost (1978), only two years before his death. One of his stories, "A Man of No Consequence", was translated into English by Olive Kenny and Thomas Ezzy and appeared in a 1988 anthology of modern Arabian literature.
Muhammad Salih Haydara is a Yemeni journalist and short story writer from southern Yemen. He was raised in Aden and studied communication at Cairo University. He has published several volumes of short stories including his debut collection A Wanderer from Yemen (1974), Very Much an Adolescent (1978) and Migrating Clouds (1980). His story "The Imprint of Blackness" has appeared in two English-language anthologies, namely The Literature of Modern Arabia (1988) and Between the Lines: International Short Stories of War (1994).
Salma Khadra Jayyusi was a Palestinian poet, writer, translator and anthologist. She was the founder and director of the Project of Translation from Arabic (PROTA), which aims to provide translation of Arabic literature into English.
The 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz (1911–2006) "who, through works rich in nuance – now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous – has formed an Arabian narrative art that applies to all mankind." He is the first and only Arabic–Egyptian recipient of the prize.