It has been said that the difference between a language and a dialect is that a language is a dialect with an army. Both the act of translation and bilingualism are steeped in a tension between surrender and conquest, yielding conscious and unconscious effects on language. First published in Arabic [...]
A splendidly translated exploration of major themes in classical Arabic literature by the most inventive and provocative critic of Arabic literature in the Middle East today. In this exceptional volume, Abedlfattah Kilito argues that genre - not authorship - is at the heart of classic Arabic literat[...]
In Arabs and the Art of Storytelling, the eminent Moroccan literary historian and critic Kilito revisits and reassesses, in a modern critical light, many traditional narratives of the Arab world. He brings to such celebrated texts as A Thousand and One Nights, Kalila and Dimna, and Kitab al-Bukhala'[...]