The Essential Yusuf Idris

Masterpieces of the Egyptian Short Story

A carefully curated collection of short story masterpieces from the "genius of the short story" (Tawfiq al-Hakim) and the Arab world's greatest short-story writer of the twentieth century, now available in paperback

''Like the Russian aristocrats of Chekhov, the provincial bourgeoisie of Flaubert, or the Ibo villagers of Achebe, Idris raises his authentic characters into convincing types within their context: he makes us live their agonies and hopes.''—Ferial Ghazoul

Yusuf Idris (1927–91), who belonged to the same generation of pioneering Egyptian writers as Naguib Mahfouz and Tawfiq al-Hakim, is widely celebrated as the father of the Arabic short story. He studied and practiced medicine, but his interests were in politics and the support of the nationalist struggle, and in writing—and his writing, whether in his regular newspaper columns or in his fiction, often reflected his political convictions. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature more than once, and when the prize went to Naguib Mahfouz in 1988, Idris felt that he had been passed over because of his outspoken views on Israel. In all, Yusuf Idris wrote some twelve collections of superbly crafted short stories, mainly about ordinary, poor people, many of which have been translated into English and are included, along with an extract from one of his novels, in this collection of the best of his work.

Included works:

• The Cheapest Nights (translated by Wadida Wassef)
• You Are Everything to Me (translated by Wadida Wassef)
• The Errand (translated by Wadida Wassef)
• Hard Up (translated by Wadida Wassef)
• The Funeral Ceremony (translated by Wadida Wassef)
• All on a Summer’s Night (translated by Wadida Wassef)
• The Caller in the Night (translated by Wadida Wassef)
• The Dregs of the City (translated by Wadida Wassef)
• Did You Have to Turn on the Light, Li-Li? (translated by Wadida Wassef)
• Death from Old Age (translated by Wadida Wassef)
• The Shame (translated by Wadida Wassef)
• His Mother (translated by Catherine Cobham)
• An Egyptian Mona Lisa (translated by Roger Allen and Christopher Tingley)
• The Chair Carrier (translated by Denys Johnson-Davies)
• Rings of Burnished Brass (translated by Catherine Cobham)
• The Shaykh Shaykha (translated by Ragia Fahmi and Saneya Shaarawi)
• It’s Not Fair (translated by Denys Johnson-Davies)
• House of Flesh (translated by Denys Johnson-Davies)
• Farahat’s Republic (translated by Denys Johnson-Davies)
• The Greatest Sin of All (translated by Mona Mikhail)
• from City of Love and Ashes (translated by R. Neil Hewison)

Contributor: Denys Johnson-Davies (Edited by), Wadida Wassef (Translated by), Denys Johnson-Davies (Translated by), Roger Allen (Translated by), R. Neil Hewison (Translated by), Mona Mikhail (Translated by), Catherine Cobham (Translated by), Ragia Fahmi (Translated by), Saneya Shaarawi (Translated by), Christopher Tingley (Translated by)

Translator: Wadida Wassef, Denys Johnson-Davies, Roger Allen, R. Neil Hewison, Mona Mikhail, Catherine Cobham, Ragia Fahmi, Saneya Shaarawi, Christopher Tingley

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