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Words Cannot Be Weighed: Literature From Egypt

January 2006

“With the confidence of a woman who knows three languages,” the Egyptian writers featured here write fabulism, social realism, modernist irony, and other tongues. In “Veiler of all deeds,” by Hamdi Abu Golayyel, “People are delighted when they hear the news that a pious man has been caught red-handed in some wrongful act.” A man waiting for a job interview is his own worst enemy in Mahmoud al Wardani’s “The Dark and the Daylight,” while a seamstress stitches a life for her children in Na’am al-Baz’s “Mrs. Saniya’s Holiday.” The sensual crooning of a wedding singer awakens old and new passions on an island in the Nile, between Egypt and Sudan, in Haggag Hassan Oddoul’s “Flirting with the Moon.” A hen and a rooster aim for respect and bring about a cultural revolution in Salwa Bakr’s “The Rooster’s Egg: A Fable of Ancient Thebes.” Literary journalist Mohamed Makhzangi observes spring in Chernobyl after nuclear disaster. And poets Tamer Fathy and Iman Mersal, like the Bedouin in Mersal’s “Sometimes Wisdom Possesses Me,” “knew early on that words fly/and cannot be weighed.”

Thanks to Chip Rossetti of American University in Cairo Press — the most prolific and essential publisher of Arabic literature in English — for his labors as guest editor in bringing us these works.

Egyptian Literature Today
By Chip Rossetti
As the largest Arabic-speaking country (at 70+ million inhabitants and counting), Egypt, with its teeming capital of Cairo, plays a disproportionately large role in the intellectual and cultural life…
The Veiler of All Deeds
By Hamdi Abu Golayyel
When Abu Gamal revealed Shaykh Hasan’s secret to the residents of Number 36 . . .
Translated from Arabic by Marilyn Booth
Learn
The Dark and The Daylight
By Mahmoud El-Wardani
She had gestured with her free hand while the other had gripped his hand and the card.
Translated from Arabic by William Maynard Hutchins
Mrs. Saniya’s Holiday
By Na’am al-Baz
“Forget the admirer, Saniya. This guy will not take care of you.”
Translated from Arabic by Alexa Firat
Learn
Flirting with the Moon
By Haggag Hassan Oddoul
“They will kidnap you, daddy’s girl.”
Translated from Arabic by William Maynard Hutchins
The Rooster’s Egg: A Fable of Ancient Thebes
By Salwa Bakr
A great fear and alarm took hold of her when she heard the high priest’s words.
Translated from Arabic by Chip Rossetti
Memories of Chernobyl
By Mohamed Makhzangi
The entire city began to wash itself ceaselessly . . .
Translated from Arabic by Samah Selim
Learn
When Clothes Were Small
By Tamer Fathy
the cutting blade’s coldness / gives me my body
Translated from Arabic by Taline Voskeritchian & Chris Millis
I Look Around Me
By Iman Mersal
as a silent way of killing- / but flashing glances / from eyes I barely glimpse
Translated from Arabic by Khaled Mattawa
I Have A Musical Name
By Iman Mersal
Maybe the window I sat by foretold an unusual glory.
Translated from Arabic by Khaled Mattawa
In Perfect Happiness
By Iman Mersal
I will make sure they are really there / in perfect happiness, / and that I am alone
Translated from Arabic by Khaled Mattawa
Amina
By Iman Mersal
My perfect friend, / why don’t you leave now.
Translated from Arabic by Khaled Mattawa
Learn
Sometimes Wisdom Possesses Me
By Iman Mersal
One day wisdom will possess me / and I will not go to the party.
Translated from Arabic by Khaled Mattawa
Learn
Things Elude Me
By Iman Mersal
One day I will pass by/ the house that used to be my home.
Translated from Arabic by Khaled Mattawa
Learn
He Marks the Weak Point
By Iman Mersal
Of course,the concrete pillars are not lacking in delicacy,and the columns of old houses are a nostalgia all their own.He added that he marks the weak pointand distributes its weight among the relatively…
Translated from Arabic by Khaled Mattawa
Happiness
By Iman Mersal
I have no patience to contemplate the sea
Translated from Arabic by Khaled Mattawa