Narrative
The Days
الأيام
Taha Hussein · 1929
Synopsis
A blind child grows up in a village in the Egyptian countryside, where he learns the Quran at the Quranic school, in a milieu governed by ignorance. His blindness is not stated at the outset: it is revealed gradually through what he touches and hears, and the narrative opens, according to Universalis, on the faded memory of light. The second part follows him to Cairo, to al-Azhar, where he resists the traditions of the institution. The grown man refers to the child he was as “he” and often breaks off to address him.
Context
The first volume appeared in serial form in the review al-Hilal from January 1926 to January 1927, then as a book in 1929; the second followed in 1940 (1939 according to Universalis), and the third, given in the review in 1955, was only collected in volume form in 1967. The author wrote it in the wake of the quarrel raised by his book on pre-Islamic verse, Universalis recalls. The narration mixes the first and third person, in an ironic dialogue between the narrator and the child, a device whose influence on the Arabic novel has been emphasised. As minister, the author abolished school fees, according to Britannica.
Who it is for
Autobiographical narrative; the French translation, with a preface by André Gide, brings together the first two parts, without the third.
Prizes and reception
According to Fedwa Malti-Douglas, no work of modern Arabic literature is as familiar to readers in the Arab world and the West.
Sources for this page 6
The pages consulted to check this page.