Al Majalla’s Book Watch

A tour of the latest releases from Arabic publishing houses on topics covering fiction, philosophy, science, history, and politics

Al Majalla’s Book Watch

Khodr Al Agha

last update on 13 Oct 2025

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.

The Russian Tale

Author: Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp

Translator: Ghassan Murtada

Publisher: Maisaloun for Culture, Translation and Publishing, Türkiye

The Russian Tale draws deeply from the traditions of Russian folk literature. The final work of the esteemed Russian literary scholar Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp, the book marks the culmination of a distinguished career devoted to the study of folklore.

Propp examines the Russian tale through a spectrum of theoretical, historical, artistic, and performative lenses. He dissects its structural elements, explores its cultural and social roots, and traces its enduring ties to oral traditions and popular mythology.

While firmly anchored in Russian cultural heritage, the book extends its reach to a global context. Through comparative analysis with folk narratives from around the world, Propp seeks to uncover the common human origins of this expressive art form.

Folk storytelling, he argues, is a shared oral legacy that transcends both geography and language. The book places particular emphasis on oral narration, the work of tale collectors, and the vital role of storytellers in safeguarding cultural memory. This focus lends the work significant value for scholars of Arab folk literature and the historical transmission of oral traditions.

According to the publisher, Propp first became known to Arab readers through his seminal work Morphology of the Folktale. Yet, despite its influence, translations of his other writings did not follow. The publisher has therefore committed to making Propp’s broader oeuvre available in Arabic, citing its considerable worth for researchers in the fields of folk literature, particularly folktales, as well as anthropology and cultural history.

The publisher also notes that The Russian Tale captures the essence of Propp’s previous works, including Folklore and Reality and Problems of Laughter and the Comic. It presents these themes with clarity and critical depth. What distinguishes this book is its concentrated focus on oral storytelling, the figure of the storyteller, and the process of tale collection. These aspects, the publisher suggests, offer valuable insights for those engaged in the study and preservation of classical Arabic literary heritage.

Contemporary Anglo-American Orientalism – Patricia Crone (1945–2015)

Author: Musab Hammadi Najm Al-Zaidi

Publisher: Dar Al-Nahda Al-Arabiya for Printing, Publishing and Distribution, Lebanon

This book presents a critical and analytical study of Patricia Crone, the Danish-born American orientalist recognised as a leading figure in the revisionist school of contemporary Islamic studies.

This movement rose to prominence at the University of London in the 1970s. Crone gained notoriety for her provocative writings on early Islam, adopting a sceptical and deconstructive approach. Her reinterpretation of Islamic texts outside their historical and civilisational contexts sparked considerable debate across both Eastern and Western academic communities.

In this work, Musab Hammadi Najm Al-Zaidi follows Crone’s intellectual development, scrutinising her treatment of classical Islamic sources and dissecting her critical methods. These, he argues, often challenge the historical reliability of Arabic and Islamic texts. He places her methodology within the wider context of Anglo-American Orientalist trends, which he describes as marked by intense criticism of Islamic heritage and broad generalisations that obscure its complexity.

According to the publisher, this school of thought represents “the most aggressive strand in discrediting Arab and Islamic sources”, distinguished by what it characterises as a dismissive and offensive attitude towards Islam and its culture. This outlook, the publisher asserts, has worsened divisions between East and West and deepened widespread misconceptions about Islam.

Rather than merely presenting Crone’s views, the author subjects them to systematic critique, employing a rigorous academic framework and extensive sourcing. His analysis is rooted in a detailed understanding of the history of Orientalist thought. He also calls upon Arab and Muslim scholars to engage constructively with contemporary Western studies on Islam.

Instead of reacting emotionally, he urges a balanced and scholarly response that can contribute meaningfully to restoring fairness in global academic discourse surrounding Islamic civilisation. He contends that the achievements of this civilisation have often been misrepresented, and redressing this should become a core responsibility for researchers in the Arab and Muslim worlds.

Through this study, Al-Zaidi offers a bold and incisive examination of one of the most contentious subjects in modern intellectual dialogue. He combines academic rigour with critical reflection, proposing new directions for Arab scholarship in the field of contemporary Orientalism and intercultural engagement.

This volume stands as a significant contribution to the Arabic library. It enhances the body of critical literature on Western Orientalist thought and offers a thorough analysis of its foundations and its influence on the modern perception of Islam.

Secularism as a National Identity – The Syrian Case as a Model

Author: Firas Saad

Publisher: Samah Publishing, Sweden

In this philosophical and political inquiry, Syrian author Firas Saad tackles the issue of identity within Arab societies. He seeks to redefine the relationship between the individual, religion, and the state in light of modern political and historical experiences.

Saad frames secularism not as a rejection of religion but as a unifying human framework. It upholds freedom of belief and the right to difference, offering a rational foundation for national identity that transcends sectarian, ethnic, and doctrinal divisions.

He regards difference as a natural human condition and a core value. Recognising this, he argues, is essential to building a free and balanced society. Its absence, or the failure to acknowledge it in Arab contexts, has allowed sectarianism and authoritarianism to take root.

Saad defines identity as an expression of the human essence, rather than a mere affiliation to a group or sect. He contends that traditional Arab thought has tied identity to the collective in ways that deny the individual their autonomy.

Across the book's seven chapters, he traces the historical formation of identities, revealing how religious identity has shifted from a source of spiritual and social cohesion to a tool of division and conflict.

In his latest book, Syrian author Firas Saad frames secularism not as a rejection of religion but as a unifying human framework

The book then turns to the concept of modern national identity, which Saad describes as a relatively recent phenomenon, emerging only within the past two centuries. He explains that such identities often arise during moments of political and economic crisis, when societies are compelled to redefine themselves.

A substantial portion of the book is devoted to Syria. Saad charts changes in identity from the Ottoman era to the French Mandate and through the Ba'athist and Assadist periods. He argues that these later stages cemented an authoritarian identity based on fear and obedience, replacing the possibility of a free and inclusive national identity.

In its concluding section, the book offers a proposal for constructing a new secular national identity. This vision rests on several principles: emancipating the individual from the dominance of the group, embedding the values of equal citizenship, and elevating the civil state as the guarantor of freedom and justice, without conferring upon it a sacred status.

Saad underscores the need to separate the religious and political realms, not in order to banish religion from public life but to restore its rightful place as a source of spiritual and ethical guidance.

He contends that embracing this model could restore societal balance and nurture a culture of pluralism and acceptance, free from fear or repression. Secularism, he concludes, is not a campaign against religion. It is a pathway out of tyranny and isolation, and a means to restore reason and dialogue as the essential conditions for any authentic human renaissance.

My Intimate Flesh

Author: Ali Abdullah Said

Publisher: Oxygen Workshop for Publishing, Canada

In his novel, Syrian writer Ali Abdullah Said presents a literary experiment that continues his broader project of dismantling language and narrative form to reconstruct the world from its remnants.

From the opening pages, the novel conjures a space where dream and reality blur, where nakedness confronts meaning, and where confession finds its echo in solitude. The text reads as both a lamentation for life and humanity and a celebration of forgotten sensations.

This is not a novel in the conventional sense. Rather, it is an open-ended text, pulsing with infinite narrative possibilities. Multiple voices drift between self and other in a temporality that resists progression, spinning instead like a vortex. The author seeks redemption through violation, meaning within near-total chaos.

The world he presents is fractured. Its remnants are scattered across characters who have lost their footing, both in the world and within themselves. The body is rendered not as a physical form but as a reflection of human ruin. A landscape in which existential questions are explored. These questions of freedom, identity, isolation, and the longing for salvation unfold in a language that is both intimate and disorienting.

When the author writes, "Perhaps we moved, in a secret, obscure narrative language, from contemplation to lust. That certainly happened. A shift from one space to another, from one language to another, from marginal or natural or rational narration to erotic or instinctive narration...", he is capturing more than the body's experience. He is speaking to the act of writing, and indeed to the act of being, within a world under constant reconstruction. In such a world, writing becomes the only act of survival.

My Intimate Flesh evolves as a metaphor, a convergence of pain and desire, body and memory, life and death.

The Decline of the Western Empire – Asia Rises to Be Reborn

Author: Pankaj Mishra

Translator: Ahmed Gamal Abu Al-Layl

Publisher: National Centre for Translation, Egypt

In The Decline of the Western Empire – Asia Rises to Be Reborn, Indian author Pankaj Mishra presents a historical account of resistance to Western colonialism across Asia, the Islamic world, and Egypt. He explores the intellectual and political shifts that shaped Asian consciousness from the late 19th to the early 20th century.

Mishra begins with a fundamental premise: that modern history has been told through a distinctly European lens. Concepts such as the Renaissance, civilisation, and the Enlightenment were defined by the Western experience, while the intellectual, cultural, and spiritual resistance of colonised peoples in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East was either overlooked or deliberately suppressed. This colonial narrative sought to impose global subjugation under the pretext of the 'white man's burden'.

Against this backdrop, Mishra constructs a counter-narrative to Eurocentrism. He restores attention to pivotal figures in Asia's intellectual awakening, among them Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Rabindranath Tagore, Sun Yat-sen and Liang Qichao.

These thinkers, he argues, were not merely reformers but the vanguard of a global liberation movement. Their vision offered an alternative modernity, grounded in spiritual depth and cultural plurality, standing in contrast to the materialism and racial ideologies of Western imperialism.

Pankaj Mishra suggests that the West's decline is not merely a moment of collapse, but also an opportunity for others to ascend

As the translator notes in the introduction, the author "offers a comprehensive account of a long colonial era alongside the determined efforts to resist the West's colonial incursion, efforts that ultimately led oppressed nations to free themselves from the yoke of the 'white man' and his so-called 'civilising mission'."

Mishra focuses in particular on Egypt, India, China, Iran, and Türkiye, identifying them as key arenas of anti-colonial struggle. He shows how these nations developed distinct models of national revival that combined internal critique with resistance to foreign domination. These movements, he insists, were not rooted in emotional reaction or cultural isolation, but in a conscious attempt to restore equilibrium to a world destabilised by Europe's imperial rise.

This context gives shape to the book's subtitle: Asia Rises to Be Reborn. Mishra argues that the present resurgence of Asia, culturally and economically, should be viewed as a historical correction to centuries of Western domination.

In this work, Mishra redefines the meaning of modern history from the perspective of those who have long been silenced. He suggests that the decline of the West is not merely a moment of collapse, but also an opportunity for others to ascend. Asia, once colonised, is now reclaiming its role at the forefront of global civilisation.

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