Research Guides
HSTRY 498B: Cities in the Modern Middle East: Primary: Literary Sources
Selected Novels
Unless one is an expert in Arab/Turkish/Hebrew/Persian literature, it is difficult to determine which novels contain a strong sense of place. These are just a selection of translated novels that may give a sense of a city. When using UW Libraries Search to find translations, add "translations into English" as part of your search, e.g., beirut "translations into english"
- Aswānī, ʻAlāʼ. The Yacoubian Building. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2004.
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Identifying Novels
It is difficult to determine what novels/short stories have a strong element of place. Use the following sources to identify novels and authors -- you will often need to make an educated guess whether or not a novel or short story will work. Book reviews and literary criticism can sometimes help in this determination.
- Gale Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
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Resources include brief author biographies, overviews & literary essays; includes the Dictionary of Literary Biography volumes for Twentieth-Century Arabic Writers and Turkish Novelists Since 1960.
- Literary Atlas of Cairo : One Hundred Years on the Streets of the City
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Check the bibliography for a list of novels on Cairo - Literary Life of Cairo: One Hundred Years in the Heart of the City
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Check the bibliography for a list of novels on Cairo
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
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Major database for identifying journal articles in the field of literature; useful for literary criticism
- Oxford Handbook of Arab Novelistic Traditions
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Chapters provide regional overviews - Writing Beirut: Mappings of the City in the Modern Arabic Novel.
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Check the bibliography for a list of novels on Beirut