Arabia News
September newsletter from Arabia Books. All the latest news, reviews and upcoming titles.
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Celebrating the forthcoming publication of The Calligrapher's Secret
The new novel from the acclaimed Syrian writer Rafik Schami.
The Dark Side of Love has been shortlisted for the 2010 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
Arabia Books has published acclaimed Syrian novelist Rafik Schami's The Dark Side of Love
Naguib Mahfouz Medal For Literature Announced
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Featured Author
The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist
RRP: Price: £7.99
Haus Price: £6.41
Friends of Haus: £6.02
Publication Date:
2010-09-01
ISBN:
9781906697266
Format:
Paperback
Territory:
UK & Commonwealth
Category:
New Titles
Pages:
192
Recommended
Books
By Emile Habiby
Purposefully imitating Voltaire's classic Candide, another dark comedy which derives its humour from life's tragedies, Habiby's The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist is a classic of Arab literature. Saeed's, a Palestinian who becomes a citizen of Israel, is a story of fact and fantasy, tragedy and comedy. At once a comic hero and luckless fool, we hear of a life of terror, aggression, resistance and heroism.
As an informer for the Zionist state, Saeed's stupidity, candour and cowardice make him more the victim than a villain; but in a series of tragicomic episodes, blundering from disaster to disaster, he is slowly transformed from gullible collaborator into a Palestinian intent on survival.
The novel, informed by the author's own experience in Israeli politics, is both biting and funny.
Emile Habiby was awarded Israel's highest cultural award, the Israel Prize, in 1992, and the top Palestinian literary honour, the Jerusalem Medal, by the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1990, both for The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist.
Translated by Salma K Jayyusi & Trevor Le Gassick