Novel
الزمن الموحش
Not translated into English
Haydar Haydar · 1973
Synopsis
Al-Zaman al-mawhish (The Desolate Time): al-Shibli Abdallah, a young intellectual who came from his village to Damascus shortly before the defeat of June 1967, recounts in the first person, through memories and dreams, his life in the capital. There he loves Muna, and everything begins with her. Around him, literate, secular comrades, who reject the heritage and wish to read the present only in the light of the future, wander between political theory, alcohol and women, in the setting sun behind Qassioun.
Context
The novel was published in 1973 in Beirut by Dar al-Awda, then went through several reissues. It is linked to the stream-of-consciousness current that took hold in the Arabic novel after the defeat of 1967: the narrator's account moves forward through flashbacks and anticipations, to the point that it has been read as an autobiography. It has given rise to university studies on its style and its construction of time, in Algeria as in Iran.
Who it is for
A novel in Arabic, with no translation, written as a stream of consciousness, between memory and dream; it presupposes knowledge of the Arab defeat of June 1967.
Prizes and reception
Seventh of the hundred best Arab novels of the twentieth century selected by the General Union of Arab Writers.