Dongola

About

The University of Arkansas Press Award for Arabic Literature in Translation, 1997

In this, the first Nubian novel ever translated, Awad Shalali, a Nubian worker in modern Egypt, dreams of Dongola—the capital of medieval Nubia, now lost to the flood waters of the Aswan High Dam. In Dongola, the Nubians reached their zenith. They defeated and dominated Upper Egypt, and their archers, deadly accurate in battle, were renowned as “the bowman of the glance.

Helima, Awad’s wife, must deal with the reality of today’s Nubia, a poverty-stricken bottomland. Men like Awad now work in Cairo for good wages while the women remain at home in squalor, dominated by the Islam of their conquerors and ignorant of the glory now covered by the Nile’s water. Left to tend Awad’s sick mother and his dying country, Halima grows despondent and learns the truths behind the Upper Egyptian lyric: “Time, you are a traitor—what have you done with my love?

Through his characters’ pain and suffering, Idris Ali paints in vibrant detail, with wit and a keen sense of history’s absurdities, the story of cultures and hearts divided, of lost lands, impossible dreams, and abandoned lives.

Author

Idris Ali is the author of three short story collections and another novel, Explosion of a Skull. Self-taught in literature, he attended the Cairo Religious Institute of Al-Azhar and currently lives in Cairo, Egypt.

Peter Theroux is the author of three books and the translator of six. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Adoption

Adopted at: George Mason University
Course: ARAB 470 Black and Minority Voices in Arabic Literature
Course Description: Addresses core topics in the study of the Arab world through the lens of literature, language and aesthetics. Topics may include the Nahdha or ‘Renaissance’ period of the late nineteenth century, Black and minority cultural productions, diaspora studies, post-colonialism or literary movements of the twentieth and twenty-first century.
Professor: Naglaa F. Mahmoud Hussein
Term: Fall 2022

Adopted at: George Mason University
Course: ARAB 325 Major Arab Writers / Stories
Course Description: Studies works of major Arab writers or collections such as The Arabian Nights.
Professor: Naglaa F. Mahmoud Hussein
Term: Fall 2022

Adopted at: Bard College
Course:Lit 2060 The Arabic Novel
Course Description: In the late nineteenth century, Arabic’s long legacy of poetry and literary prose, not to mention popular storytelling, encountered the novel form. This course will survey a history of modern Arabic literature through the shifting reception and role of prose narrative, from the hopeful early years of the Arab Nahdah (the 19th to 20th century Arab renaissance), through to the 1960s and the crisis of committed literature, to the rants and romances of the contemporary literary scene; authors include Muhammad al-Muwaylihi, Taha Husayn, Mohammed Choukri, Naguib Mahfouz, Ghassan Kanafani, Ibrahim al-Koni, Tayeb Salih, Hanan al-Shaykh, Rajaa Alsanea, and Ahmed Alaidy.
Professor: Elizabeth Holt
Term: Fall 2022

Adopted at: US Naval Academy
Course: FA350E Window on Arabic Culture
Course Description: Using English translations, course explores Arab culture from the Qur’an to current novels and films. Class discusses Arab identities, intellectual contributions of Arabs, and Arab voices on key issues today. Counts as an upper level Humanities-Social Science course. (Taught in English) Professor:
Term: Fall 2021