Novel
Egyptian Earth
الأرض
Abd al-Rahman al-Sharqawi · 1954
Synopsis
In the early 1930s, a boy studying in Cairo comes back to spend the summer in his village, which he finds in turmoil. The authorities cut the peasants' irrigation turn from ten days to five, on pain of seizure of their land, and fields are to make way for a new road, according to The Modern Novel. Around the fellah Abd al-Hadi, Muhammad Effendi, educated in the city, and the young Wasifa, who defies convention, the village organises itself against those who mean to dispossess it, mixing humour with seriousness.
Context
The novel appeared in 1954, 1953 according to its English publisher, and is set in the 1930s, under a monarchy that had dissolved parliament and suspended the constitution, The Modern Novel recalls. The villagers there set understanding and cunning against confrontation. Desmond Stewart translated it into English in 1962, and Saqi has reissued it; Youssef Chahine made a film of it in 1969, La Terre. In French, Arlette Tadié published selected, translated and annotated extracts of it in 1993.
Who it is for
A novel with many characters and much dialogue; translated into English, known in French through annotated excerpts.
Prizes and reception
A simple story of the peasants' struggle against their oppressors, writes The New Arab, it has become a modern classic.
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