Studies in Arabic Theatre and Literature

This is a pioneer book devoted to the rich literature of the contemporary Arab world, dealing with prose and drama. This literary output abounds in tens of important names of writers and hundreds of interesting works. The book correctly reveals the most important literary phenomena as well as most interesting concepts and topics of this immense output. It outlines a colourful and exciting, even though frequently dramatic, picture of life of the contemporary Arabs. The author gives a thorough presentation of the contemporary Arabic literature and she succeeds in this difficult task by reaching its deepest meanings. The author proves that the essence of this literature consists in a never-ending search for cultural identity of the writers as well as for an uncompromising settling of accounts with own history, which is not only a medium of the flourishing civilisation of Islam but also a source of the most serious problems today.