LITERATURE AND NATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

marginal literatures of the middle eastHis novella, Nourredin Bomba, was published in 1957. It is about theEgyptian revolt against the British in 1918 and was written in honour of therevolution of 1952. But his major work was a trilogy, translated into English asDrifting Cities. Although the main themes are based on the Egyptian Greekcommunity, there is a portrait of a multi-racial, multi-ethnic city neighbourhoodwith a shared humanity. In one scene, the muezzin has called for thesunset prayers, an announcement to all that it is the end of the day.Arab women came out on their doorsteps and called their children in singsong tones.‘Tolbah, Hassan, Felfel, where are you hiding?’ From the balconies, other voicescalled: ‘Marco, Nicola, Virginia, come home now.’ (Karampetsos 1984: 47)The trilogy is unquestionably an Egyptian novel, part of Middle Easternliterature. Tsirkas migrated from Egypt and settled in Greece in 1966, dying in1980. His work is an example of what I call marginal literature. Today theGreek community of Egypt is a shadow of a shadow, yet up to fifty years ago theywere a vital element at all levels of society. To overlook their literature is tooverlook an essential ingredient of twentieth-century literary Egypt.I would like to turn to another fictional work that even more defies easycategorisation. Mohammed Cohen by Claude Kayat was published in Paris in1981. The author was a Jew from Sfax in Tunisia who migrated to France andbecame a teacher of French and English. The novel, written in French, tells thestory of the child of the union of a Sfax Jewish barber and his Bedu wife. Havingswallowed the improbability (but not impossibility) of that union, we follow thenarrative of the Sfaxian childhood and youth of Mohammed who lives to thefull on the margins of Tunisian nationalism. He has three passions in life: Frenchliterature, Arab music and Jewish cuisine. The boy is involved in TunisianZionist camps and he migrates with his family to Israel. He resists pressure tochange his name from Mohammed to something more Hebraic. Mohammedexperiences the difficulties of a Tunisian Jew in Israel and becomes disillusionedwith Zionism. He gets a scholarship to Sweden, stays on, takes Swedish nationalityand marries a Swedish girl. He has problems explaining that he is an ex-Israeli Tunisian half-Jew. When he tries to explain his attachment to his Arabheritage, someone says to him:Alors, tu te sens a moitié juif et a moitié arabe?Non. Cent pour cent juif et cent pour cent arabe.[Then you feel half Jewish and half Arab?No. One hundred per cent Jewish and one hundred per cent Arab.] (Kayat 1981: 263)He and his Swedish wife take a holiday in Tunisia and pay what is forMohammed a sentimental visit to Sfax. Just as they identify the flat whereMohammed was born, the wife has labour pains and, of course, gives birth inthat flat: a satisfying completion of the circle.— 185 —www.taq.ir