The Arab world has a vibrant and rich literary scene. Al Majalla picks out some choice titles in our fortnightly round-up of the latest Arabic books, which aims to highlight some trends and thinking in the Arab world.
Mohammed Al-Maghout: Letters of Hunger and Fear
Author: Issa Al-Maghout
Publisher: Samih Publishing House, Sweden
This deeply intimate volume offers a rare and personal look into the life of the Syrian poet Mohammed Al-Maghout, as told by his brother, Issa. It unveils aspects of the poet’s life that were never disclosed in his prolific body of work, details that appear to have been known only to his immediate family.
According to the author, even the poet’s wife Saniyya Saleh (also a poet) was unaware of these revelations. This may not surprise, given that there is often disparity between an artist’s public creativity and their private conduct.
The book opens with a foreword by Nawar Al-Maghout, the author’s son and the poet’s nephew. He reflects on his father’s life of hardship and says this was shaped in part by Mohammed Al-Maghout’s refusal to help his brother get work or gain literary recognition. The poet is also said to have shielded his brother from his own social circle, actively discouraging any form of assistance.
“If you attend the (theatrical) performance and someone comes to greet you, don’t tell them you’re my brother,” Mohammed allegedly once told Issa. Yet this kind of statement contrasts sharply with the loving and admiring tone of his letters to Issa.
The book recounts a life steeped in poverty, hunger, pain, and emotional strain. The poet’s response to these hardships, according to Issa, was a form of “rage,” comparable to “a lion’s cruelty in a jungle devoid of prey.” Numerous letters from Mohammed to his family, especially Issa, are interspersed throughout the text.
First published in 2009, the book was quickly withdrawn from Syrian markets due to political and security concerns. This new edition includes additional essays and critical reviews written by poets and critics in response to the original release.
According to the publisher, the book combines autobiography, philosophical reflection, familial elegy, and social commentary, and stands as a profound document shaped by suffering, where personal memory fuses with the destiny of a generation worn down by idealism and crushed by reality.
With a non-linear structure, the narrative shifts between personal letters, free-form reflections, oral testimonies, and documentary fragments. Each chapter offers a fresh vantage point on Al-Maghout, sometimes filtered through his brother’s perspective, at other times through the poet’s own words.
The multiplicity of voices and formats grants the narrative both documentary weight and philosophical resonance, turning it into an emotional archive of harrowing yet unforgettable experiences. The portrait that emerges is of Mohammed Al-Maghout as a wayward and defiant poet, a lover of freedom, yet burdened by poverty and anguish, a genius who challenged authority yet appeared vulnerable with loved ones, sharp-tongued in public yet disintegrating in private.
He shunned comfort and embraced cold, hunger, and isolation, as if they were necessary preconditions for the poetic force within him to survive. Ultimately, those very conditions consumed him, both physically and emotionally.
Theatrical Lanterns
Author: Anwar Mohammed
Publisher: Arab Theatre Institute, United Arab Emirates
Syrian writer Anwar Mohammed uses the evocative title Theatrical Lanterns to spotlight Arab theatre practitioners who, for him, transformed theatre into a cultural and social force, one that articulates the timeless conflict between good and evil.
Combining textual analysis with philosophical reflection, the author surveys the contributions of more than 40 dramatists from across the Arab world, revealing both his deep passion for theatre and his steadfast belief in its enduring role as a vehicle for enlightenment.
From 1848 and the very first translated performance of Molière’s The Miser, staged by Maroun Al-Naqqash in his Beirut home, to Abu Khalil Qabbani presenting his own play Sheikh Waddah wa Misbah wa Qut al-Arwah (The Nourishment of Souls) in Damascus in 1871, Mohammed says the productions “have always stood, and still stand, for bravery against backwardness, ignorance, and intellectual blindness, proving the depth of its enlightenment impulse”.
He examines the likes of Tawfiq Al-Hakim, No'man Ashour, Naguib Surur, Saadallah Wannous, Youssef Al-Ani, Ezzedine Madani, Hassan El-Mneimneh, Abdelkader Alloula, Ezzedine Hilali, Saqr Al-Rushoud, and Yaqoub Al-Shadraoui, looking at both their texts, productions, and challenges, not least the deteriorating political and cultural conditions in the Arab world.
“Despite everything, these theatrical lanterns persisted in addressing our existential issues: our struggle against the Zionist enemy, against all forms of backwardness, and against tyranny,” says the author. “This in an era shaped by Western and American philosophies that promote and legitimise ignorance, dependency, and decline. There is no awakening, no enlightenment, no renaissance.
“And yet, amidst all this pain, the Arab playwright’s mind never ceased to produce plays and performances built on aesthetic and philosophical foundations. Whether rooted in Arab literary heritage, daily tragedies, or influenced by Western theatre movements such as the Theatre of the Absurd, experimental theatre, or post-dramatic theatre, these productions did not lapse into hollow political or social rhetoric.
“Rather, they gave rise to performances in which audiences merged with the events on stage, generating a unique phenomenon in Arab theatre that united playwright, actor, director, and spectator in a shared spiritual experience as victims of a common reality.”
Wandering Praises
Author: Raed Al-Eid
Publisher: Dar Don, Egypt
The topic of contemplative consideration for Saudi author Raed Al-Eid is the everyday, the fleeting, the casual, the peripheral, and the unthinking. Such moments and things are brought under the spotlight here, and treated to a fusion of personal memory, introspective insight, philosophical thought, and literary reflection. It amounts to an effort to re-examine and re-define the familiar.
Each musing appears as if a meditation, and each flows naturally into the next, offering a continuous stream of evolving perspectives that never settle into finality. One such exploration is the frame of a painting—a “screen for childhood dreams; within it our minds painted countless pictures and captured many moments”.
Elsewhere, Al-Eid turns his attention to praise. “Compliments affect us; kind words can leave a beautiful trace that stays with us for a lifetime. What does praise do to us? How does it affect others when we praise them? Does the universe shift when we speak fondly of things – of homes, of years, of our old streets?”
In Al-Eid’s writing, praise is not in the grandeur of eloquence, nor is it assertive or ornamental. It is tentative, wandering, thoughtful, sometimes delayed, rarely polished or formal, always sincere, and always deliberate.
The book is organised into nine thematic chapters, covering aspects such as beginnings, play, the ceiling, the margin, and almonds. Each is shaped by a blend of literary sensibility, philosophical perspective, and personal resonance, imbuing the work with a gentle warmth that sets it apart from the austerity of academic discourse.
The Epic of King Al-Badranar Ibn Al-Nahrawan
Edited by: Amr Abdelaziz Monir
Contributing Editor: Intisar Abdelaziz Monir
Publisher: Brill Publishers, Germany and the Netherlands
This ambitious 12-volume work presents a significant contribution to the genre of heroic popular epics, recounting the life and exploits of the legendary King Al-Badranar Ibn Al-Nahrawan Ibn Tayyiboush Ibn Qayboush.
His tale is drawn from the broader tradition of Sirat Bani Hilal, the celebrated Arab oral epic tradition recounting centuries of tribal heroism that has far-reaching cultural resonance. The Hilali epic, transmitted across generations by devoted performers, served both as entertainment and as a means of preserving collective memory, reinforcing communal identity, and expressing a longing for Arab heroism.
Within this framework, King Al-Badranar emerges as a warrior defending Islamic and Arab values. His story connects the heroic ethos of the Prophet Muhammad with later historical periods, including the Mamluk and Ottoman eras. Nearly lost to Arab literary and historical memory, the text revives a genre of heroic narrative that flourished in later Islamic history.
King Al-Badranar’s valour and his commitment to preserving the political and moral integrity of the Islamic world align him with the great figures of Arab folklore, heroes who stood firm against those who threatened their sense of justice and identity. Far from being mere fiction, these narratives reflect deep cultural truths and the lived realities of the communities that preserved them.
This epic is especially valuable in that it highlights a largely forgotten narrative, one that charts the conversion of Turkish tribes from paganism to Islam and their political and military entanglements with powers such as the Mongols during the Abbasid period. Among these tribes were the Khitan, or Qara Khitai, whose rulers played a pivotal role in the Islamic East.
Their confrontations with rival powers, particularly the Seljuks, are chronicled here alongside their reliance on Arab advisers (notably from the Bani Hilal) for guidance in governance, justice, and internal security. Through this, the epic dramatises the historical entanglements of Arab, Turkish, and Persian identities, reflecting the emotional and narrative richness cultivated by oral storytellers.
Central to the story is the mythic figure of Al-Nahrawan, portrayed as an unyielding force for good, a destroyer of idols and defender of the weak who ultimately seeks to uphold justice through alliances with Arab champions. His narrative resonates with themes of loyalty, faith, and the enduring power of Arab heroism.
The volume also includes rare images from the original manuscript, offers a thorough analysis of how Arab audiences have historically engaged with the epic, and explores how Arabic epics have been received in the West.
Philosophising and Sufism
Author: Mohamed Chawki El-Zein
Foreword by: Mokhtar Khammas
Publisher: Ibn Al-Nadim Publishing and Distribution and Al-Rawafed Cultural Publishers, Lebanon and Algeria
The age-old relationship between Sufism and philosophy has long intrigued scholars and mystics alike. The rigour of philosophy seems incompatible with the intuitive and spiritual depth of Sufism, yet Algerian author Mohamed Chawki El-Zein in fact shows that the two traditions are profoundly interlaced.
Drawing on the Arabic term tawāshuj, derived from washīja, meaning an intertwined and inseparable bond, El-Zein focuses on the recurring rhetorical device of inversion (tabdīl), in which meaning is enhanced by stylistic reversal. As illustrative of this principle, he cites the classical Arabic maxim: ‘The customs of the noble are the noblest of customs.’
Here, inversion reveals a mutuality in which philosophy discovers itself within Sufism, and Sufism—in turn—finds voice within philosophy. In its traditional form, philosophy consists of doctrines, methods, analytical frameworks, and rational investigation, whereas Sufism, by contrast, is rooted in lived, emotionally resonant experience, in the visions, illuminations, and inner transformations that define the Sufi path.
El-Zein suggests that Sufism follows a wholly different logic, one grounded in the reality of spiritual life, where intellect is often subordinated or eclipsed by insight. The author suggests that reference should be to philosophy not as a noun but as a verb: philosophising, because this implies process and movement, inviting a re-examination of how intellectual engagement can lead, or even evolve, into spiritual inquiry.
In his foreword, Mokhtar Khammas describes the book as “the most beautiful contemporary philosophical adventure,” adding: “The philosophical and Sufi experiences have always been sites of scrutiny and debate, both within their traditions and in broader intellectual history.”
He further argues that El-Zein’s personal voice lends the work a unique resonance, raising the idea of ‘entwinement’ beyond metaphor to something more structurally inherent: a weaving together of two traditions into a single fabric of inquiry.
In sum, Philosophising and Sufism is not merely an academic study, but a philosophical and spiritual invitation, one that challenges rigid classifications and encourages readers to view thought and mysticism not as separate realms, but as intertwined paths on a shared journey toward meaning.
