Novel
الرغيف
Not translated into English
Tawfiq Yusuf Awwad · 1939
Synopsis
In Mount Lebanon, in 1916, under Ottoman rule and in famine, Sami Assem, a nationalist militant, hides in a cave in the mountain, where his fiancée Zeina brings him food and news. Having left to join other fighters, he is captured and thrown into prison. Meanwhile, his family sinks into poverty, and little Tom, left to himself, survives among the beggars of the city.
Context
The novel appeared in 1939. It is set in the Levant during the First World War, on the eve of the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire, and draws on the great famine of 1915 in Mount Lebanon, which its author had lived through as a child. It is the first of the author's two novels; the second appeared in French under the title Dans les meules de Beyrouth. الرغيف was translated into French only in 2014, by Fifi Abou Dib, from Actes Sud-Sindbad and L'Orient des livres.
Who it is for
In Arabic and, since 2014, in French; it helps to know what the famine of Mount Lebanon was during the Great War.
Prizes and reception
Translated into French seventy-five years after its publication, it is still the subject of academic study, in Italy as in Romania.
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