The boom of new authors in the Arab world, in countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar, could be defined as a social phenomenon (and not only a literary one). In this region for a very long time social and religious constraints conditioned the various forms of art. It has been in these countries that, in recent years, a new generation of novelists has emerged arousing the curiosity of Arabs in the Mediterranean region and consequently also abroad. Abdullah Thabit, Mohammad Hassan Alwan and Yahya Amqassam from Saudi Arabia, Hussein Al-Abri from Oman and Wajdi al-Ahdal from Yemen are all now finalists for Beirut39, the UNESCO initiative that in April will reward the 39 best contemporary Arab authors under the age of 39. This is yet another sign of the interest shown for this literary production at an international level.

Few Italian readers will have missed the publication of The Girls of Riyadh by young Saudi author Rajaa Al Sanae (2005), a bestseller in Arabic, published in Italian in 2008 and translated into most European languages. The Arabian Peninsula has an emerging literature, suited to curious readers, that has attracted the interest of Arabs in the Mediterranean, who until now felt culturally superior but anxious to discover how their richer neighbours live, think and write (the current popular author is Sarah Al Jarwan, from Abu Dhabi, with her Turus ilà mawlà-ia as-Sultàn, translated as ‘Notes for My Lord the Sultan’ Dar al-Adab, Beirut, 2009). The number of “tsunamis” that have in particular hit Saudi Arabia’s new literature (as a pan-Arab London daily paper Al Sharq Al Awsat described the boom of authors from Riyadh) speak for themselves. Between 1950 and 1960 six novels were published in Abdullah’s Kingdom, becoming 67 between 1981 and 1990 and then 98 in the course of the next decade and 226 between 2000 and 2006.

These are small numbers compared to the West, but important in a country where, until ten or so years ago there was a high level of illiteracy and religious texts are still at the top of official lists for the most popular books. It is a paradox that some of these books cannot be found in shops in the Saudi Kingdom, while they secretly circulate among avid readers (censorship is no longer the same that afflicted authors in previous generations, however, many authors prefer to publish their work through Lebanese and Egyptian publishing houses so as to have better distribution). These are new stories bearing a message of protest and speaking of slavery, taboos, traditions and superstition, of social disintegration, individual guilt and complicated relations between men and women. Among the Saudi authors most sold in Italy, where the number of novels translated from Arabic is now over 200 (see also www.arablit.it), includes Abd al Rahman Munif (City of Salt, 2007, East of the Mediterranean, 1993, Story of a City,1996 and The Trees and Marzuk’s Murderer, 2004) whose books are influenced by his Jordanian-Iraqi origins.

Female authors, in addition to Rajaa Al Sanae, include Layla al-Giuhni (The Lost Song, 2007) and Siba Al Harez (The Others, 2008). The female authors published in 2001 with the collection of short stories entitled ‘Roses of Arabia’ are also important. In November (2009) a book by author, journalist and essay writer Ahmed Abodehman entitled La Cinture [The Belt] was published, the first novel by a Saudi written in French. Authors from the United Arab Emirates, although still not well-known abroad, include those who wrote the collection of short stories entitled Pearls of the Emirates (2009), among them Suad Al Arimi (The Field in Ghumran), Muhammad al-Murr (Stationary and Smiling) and Asma’ al-Zarauni (The Death of Words), who lift the veil concealing a society in which there are still powerful contradictions, that leave space to a sense of anxiety and angst and destroy the myth of a rich and happy people.

Literary production in Yemen is, finally, very different. The country that enchanted Pier Paolo Pasolini, who in 1970 chose it as the setting for the “Il fiore delle Mille e una notte”, during the 20th Century has developed a rich literary production (of fiction and poetry), the result of contacts with various eastern and western cultures. These are books that for the moment have not received the attention they deserve from scholars, excessively concentrated on the Mediterranean, nor from Arab countries themselves perhaps due to a form of snobbery. A selection of this work has been published in the collection entitled Pearls of Yemen (2009) which includes work by Wajdi al-Ahdal, a novelist who has won many literary awards in Yemen, and by poet and narrator Abd al-Nasir Mugalli, a modern storyteller whose pioneering efforts have made cultural movements in Yemen what they are today. Literature in Yemen is also the subject addressed in a special edition (2009) of Banipal, the authoritative English magazine on Arab literature that publishes literary works, interviews with authors and reviews. Early in 2010 the novel Hubb laysa illà (Nothing but Love) was published by Yemeni author Nadia al-Kawkabani, one of the most important personalities in the Yemeni literary world.

Translated by Francesca Simmons