LITERATURE AND NATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

peter clarkwriting on Arab themes in English has some similarity to those North Africanswho have written in French. Although most are subject to anglophone culturalinfluences by living outside the Arab world, they do not have to write inEnglish. The Syrian Zakaria Tamir, the Sudanese al-Tayyib Salih, the JordanianAmjad Nasir and the Lebanese Hanan al-Shaykh have long lived in Britain butcontinue to write in Arabic. With four daily newspapers that circulate widelythroughout the Arab world, London has become a centre of Arab journalism.But we are seeing an Arab literature in English that is parallel to Indian orCaribbean literature in English. Jabra Ibrahim Jabra probably spoke for them allwhen he wrote, in an essay, ‘Why Write in English?’ that ‘my work could onlybe, in the final analysis, Arabic in the profoundest sense. Cultures have alwaysinteracted, but never to the detriment of a nation conscious of its own vitalsources, of the complexity of its own identity’ (Jabra 1988: 15).The contemporary writers I have mentioned have all been writers of fiction,and their work has first been published in Britain. There have been no first rankEnglish-medium poets in Britain from the Arab world. This is in contrast to theUnited States, which has produced an Arab consciousness expressed throughpoetry. I may mention here the Libyan Khalid Mutawwa‘, the Iraqi SargonBoulos and the Palestinians Naomi Shihab Nye and Suheir Hammad whosePalestinian consciousness has been grafted onto a tradition of American blackpoetry (Hammad 1996).I have so far been talking of Arab writing in French and English. But acentury ago Middle Eastern cities were multi-lingual. Members of the BritishLevant Consular Service were expected to be familiar with Latin, French, Greek,Turkish, Arabic and Persian. Italian, German and Spanish were optional(Wratislaw 1924: 2–3). Today most British diplomats serving in the Middle Eastdo not even have Arabic.I have mentioned how Alexandria had a huge Greek population. There wasan Alexandrian Greek literature. The work of Cafavy is well known. His lifeand work are intimately connected with the city. Greeks were in most cities andtowns of Egypt and the Sudan in the early years of the twentieth century. Iwould like to pause and consider the interesting case of Stratis Tsirkas. BornIannis Hadjiandreas in Cairo in 1911, the son of a second generation Greekbarber, he worked in industry in Upper Egypt, and started publishing poetry inthe 1930s, and was active in the Communist Party until the 1960s. He was nopart of the Greek plutocracy and his feelings for Egypt could have beenexpressed by any Egyptian nationalist:And I sing of Egyptbecause she shelters and nourishes me like a mother,because she hurts, like a motherand because she hopes like a mother (Karampetsos 1984: 42)— 184 —www.taq.ir