THE MODERN ARABIC VERY SHORT STORY:

A GENERIC APPROACH

Introduction

The development of literary genres is a function of a complex interaction

between intra-literary and extra-literary factors. This dynamic leads to the
perpetual change of existing genres and to the birth of new literary phe-
nomena, which attain the status of sub-genres and aspire to become "well-
established" genres in the future, whereupon they go through this process
anew.' As for the very short story in modern Arabic literature, from the
viewpoint of the sociology of literature a certain connection exists between
this form and the scientific development that the world has experienced in
recent decades, with its effect on all aspects of modern life. Numerous rev-
olutionary, technological, and cultural information sources have contributed

I am grateful to Professor George J. Kanazi, Hanna Abu Hanna, and Ayman el-Haj who
translated the Arabic texts to English especially for this study.
1 Research on
genre theory employs three approaches: pure genre, inter-genre, and anti-
genre. The second approach seems to be more prevalent than the other two. Based on the
inter-genre approach, the dynamic of constant interaction among various genres transfers
generic components from one genre to another, stresses certain components, and overlooks
others. Inter-generic activity brings diverse genres closer and blurs the familiar borders
between them. See Roland Barthes, "From Work to Text," in Josue Harari, ed., Textual
Strategies, Ithaca NY, Cornell University Press, 1979; Ralph Cohen, "History and Genre,"
New Literary History, 17:2 (1986), pp. 203-18; Ralph Cohen, "Do PostmodernGenres Exist?"
Genre, 20:3-4(1987), pp. 241-57;Jonathan Culler, "Towards a Theory of Non Genre Literature,"
in Raymond Federman, cd., Surfiction: Fiction Now and Tonzorrow,Chicago, Swallow Press,
1975; Jacques Derrida, "The Law of Genre," Critical Inquiry, 7:1 ( 1980),pp. 55-82 (this essay
also appeared in Glyph, 7:1, 1980, pp. 202-32); David Fishelov, Metaphors of Genre: The
Role of Analogies in Genre Theory, University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press,
1993; Alastair Fowler, Kinds of Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and
Mode.s,Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982; Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Critici.sm:Four- Essays,
Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1957; Paul Hernadi, BeyorzdGenre: New Direc-
tions in Literary Classification, Ithaca NY, Cornell University Press, 1972; Adena Rosmarin,
The Power- of Genre, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1985; Tzvetan Todorov,
The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Liter-aryGenre, Cleveland, Press of Case Western
Reserve University, 1975. This activity is usually examined in terms of similarity, common-
ality, and difference.Similarity and commonalityallow us to refer to a group of texts in terms
of familiarity. In addition to the inner-literarydynamic, there is also an extra-literary dynamic,
which effects the development of certain genres and the weakening of others. For more details
see David Fishelov, "Genre Theory and Family Resemblance-Revisited," Poetics, 20 (1991),
pp. 123-38; Eleanor Rosch and Carolyn Mervis, "Family Resemblance: Studies in the Internal
Structure of Categories," Cognitive Psychology, 7 (1975), pp. 573-605.
60

to the appearance of very short fiction texts compatible with the fast pace
of this development. Edward al-Kharrdt observes that additional reasons for
the creation of this genre relate to political conditions and the serious con-
sequences of the 1967 war for the Arab world-harsh social conditions and
disappointment with socialist ideals. From a literary point of view, al-
Kharrdt adds the major factor of the failure of the short story, as an insti-
2
tutionalized genre, to constantly innovate and explore new possibilities.
Generally, the state of openness, fluidity, and blurring of borders among
information, culture, and art appears to have contributed greatly to the inter-
action among various genres. In our case, the blurring of borders between
the short story and poetry has led to the birth of the very short story, as will
be discussed later on.3
The number of Arabic texts written under the generic auspices of the very
short story is extremely large and is constantly increasing.4 The amount of
theoretical and critical research on the very short story, however, is immeas-
urably less. The wide gap indicates a state of confusion among researchers
and theorists faced with this new, ever intensifying and crystallizing literary
form. The embarrassment is reflected in continuous silence and a state of
expectation. Such research as does exist concentrates on three main charac-
teristics, namely the brevity of the very short story, its similarity to poetry,
and the reader's active position. These three contain numerous sub-charac-
teristics concerning the various techniques employed.
The first characteristic, brevity, refers to the relationship between the very
short story and the short story, apparently in technical terms of quantity. But
this quantitative difference involves essential differences of type. A major
consideration in the ordering of the narrative genres on the quantity contin-

2 see Edward al-Kharrdt,al-Kitdba (ahr al-NawCiyya:Maqalat ff 7dhirat al-Qi,s;saal-Qasida

wa-Nusus Mukhtara, Cairo, Ddr Sharqiyydt, 1994, p. 20. For further information see also
Khayri Duma, Tadakhul al-Ans>f' fi al-QiSSa al-Mi,çriyyaal-Qa$ira 1960-1990, Cairo, al-
Hay'a al-Misriyya al-`Amma lil-Kitab, 1998.
3 In addition to all these factors that have
spurred the developmentof the Arabic very short
story, it seems that the tradition of classical Arabic prose forms the background to it.
However, the link between various short genres of classical Arabic prose and the modern
Arabic very short story has not been extensively discussed. I believe that this topic merits seri-
ous discussion in a separate work. For more information on this subject see Ahmad 'Abd al-
Rdziq Abu al-`Ula, "al-Qissa al-Qasira Jiddan wa-Ishkaliyyat al-Shakl al-Qasasi al-Mu'dsir,"
al- Thaqäfaal-Jadida, August (1989), pp. 40-43; Gh5li Shukri, "Min lshkdliyyat al-Qissa al-
Misriyya al-Qasira," Ibda`, August (1989), pp. 7-19.
This genre has increasingly been the writing focus of many Arab writers, for example,
Yahya al-Tdhir `Abdallah,Hand' `Atiyya, 'Abd al-Mun'im al-Bdz, Rifqi Badawi, Badr al-Dib,
Nasir al-Halawani, Sa'd al-Din Hasan, 'Abd al-Hakim Haydar, Muhammad al-Makhzanji,
MuhammadMustajdb,Nabil Na'bm, Muntasiral-Qaffash,'Ibtihdl Sdlim,Sayyidal-Wakil(Egypt);
Mahmudal-Rajabi(Jordan);Sdlimal-Humaydi(Yemen);MahmudShuqayr(Palestine);Zakariyya
Tamir (Syria); Ibrahim Ahmad, Muhsin al-Khafdji (Iraq), Muhammad Nujaym (Morocco), and
many others.
 61

uum is brevity and minimalism.5 The component of quality in the definition

of genres is a relative, not an absolute issue, and this relativity is a func-
tion of comparison among genres. A researcher who compares the length of
the very short story with that of the short story, or the length of the short
story with the length of the novel, and so on, presumably uses a framework
of borders for each of the genres. This framework does not have to be iden-
tical with any other framework used by any other researcher and is not
binding on all. This relativity is a function of openness and fluidity. Most
researchers who deal with definitions of various genres of fiction are not
engaged in an absolute determination of the maximal and minimal borders
of those genres. They may leave an interval between the maximal border
and the minimal border by saying that the genre fluctuates between X words
and Y words.6 I cannot use this approach, which indicates making a gener-
alization on the grounds of a certain number of words, even if this general-
ization is described with caution and reservations. One may find a very short
story of twenty words (less than two lines); and one may find other very
short story of 500 words. Therefore, I suggest dealing with the matter of
quantity in more general terms, without mentioning a certain number of
words or pages-by an open kind of outlook which refers to the entity and
not to the minor details. In any case, the attempt to hermetically delineate
the maximal and minimal quantitative limits of various genres of fiction is
doomed to failure because of the incessant vacillation of these limits up-
wards and downwards.
Still, it seems that length does matter, and is even vital to a certain extent
in defining the very short story's generic identity. If the story is significantly
brief, we may assume that it will employ techniques compatible with this
shortness. Conversely, it could be argued that the employment of such tech-
niques will result in limited dimensions and a minimal number of words.
That is, the link between the brevity of a genre and literary techniques and
certain characteristics is dialectic and fixed.' Yet the matter of length does

5 For an
interesting discussion on this topic, see Norman Friedman, "Recent Short Story
Theories: Problems in Definition," in Susan Lohafer and Jo Ellyn Calrey, eds., Short Story
Theory at a Crossroads, Baton Rouge and London, Louisiana State University Press, 1989,
pp. 13-31; Cynthia J. Hallett, "Minimalism and the Short Story," Studies in Short Fiction, 33
(1996), pp. 487-95; Mary Louise Pratt, "The Short Story: The Long and the Short of It,"
Poetics, 10 ( 1981 ),pp. 175-94; Gerald Prince, "The Long and the Short of It," Style, 27:3
(1993), pp. 327-3l; Philip E. Simmons, "Minimalist Fiction as 'Low' Postmodernism, Mass
Culture and the Search for History," Genr-e,24 (Spring, 1991), pp. 45-62.
6 See for
example Ian Reid, The Short Story, London and New York, Methuen & Co Ltd
and Barnes & Noble Books, 1977, pp. 9-10; Robert Shapard and James Thomas, eds., Sudden
FictionInternational:SixtyShort-ShortStor-ies,New York and London,W.W.Norton& Company,
1989, 20, 331; Austin M. Wright, "On defining the Short Story: The Genre Question," in
Susan Lohafer and Jo Ellyn Clarey, eds., Short Story Theory at a Cros,sroads, p. 51.
1 For more details about the link between
"degree" and "kind" and the interrelations
62

not turn one genre into another; exceeding the maximal limits of a short
story does not turn it into a novelette or a novel. Length, therefore, will not
be discussed here in terms of quantity, and of course not by citing numbers,
but in terms of quality, with consideration of the use of various literary tech-
niques. This characteristic-brevity-points to the position of the very short
story as an intermediary genre between fiction and poetry, as will be clar-
ified in the course of this article.
On the continuum between the short story, which shares a familiar, max-
imal, and "well-established" border with fiction, and poetry lie a significant
number of diverse sub-genres, most of which have not yet been the subject
of thorough, comprehensive, and in-depth deliberation, as have the other
genres on the continuum. The confusion arising from the use of a variety of
terms and names for these forms indicates a state of perplexity among
researchers. Even if we agree that these are the only sub-genres between
"pure" fiction and "pure" poetry, there can still be no agreement among the
sub-types of these sub-genres.'
This continuum represents an entire sequence from fiction to poetry based
on the principle of gradation. Our concern here is the situation of the very
short story, which a priori and in principle this article places closer to fiction
than to poetry. Its placement somewhere between poetry and fiction means
that the generic identity of the very short story is a combination of several
characteristics of those two. The very short story may in fact be treated as
one of the links that mediate between fiction and poetry and that blur the
borders between them. This is exactly what is meant by researchers who
deal with genre theory in terms of interaction and mutual effects. This arti-
cle turns on the character of the very short story and its relation to the
reader. I am not sure whether the strong position of the reader in the process
of his literary communication with the very short story is a textual compo-
nent in the generic identity of the latter. However, I am certain that the
reader's strong and active position is a function of those two central char-
acteristics reflected in the textual data in the formal, stylistic, and structural
features, and various literary techniques, as will be discussed in the follow-
ing sections.9

between structure and theme in short fiction, see Suzanne C. Ferguson, "Defining the Short
Story: Impressionism and Form," Modern Fiction Studies, 28:1(Spring, 1982), 13-24;
Friedman, "Recent Short Story Theories: Problems in Definition;" Charles E. May, "The
Unique Effect of the Short Story: A Reconsideration and an Example," Studies in Short
Fiction, 13 (1976), pp. 289-97; Charles E. May, "The Nature of Knowledge in Short Fiction,"
Studies in Short Fiction, 21 (1984), pp. 327-38.
1 On the various
genres and sub-genres between "pure" narrative fiction and "pure" poetry
in Arabic literature and its problematic definition, see Duma, Tadakhul al-Anwa(.
9 For more details on the reader's role and status in narrative short
genres, see John
Gerlach, "The Margins of Narrative: The Very Short Story, the Prose Poem, and the Lyric,"
 63

1. Devices of Brevity

In the very short story "A Fall" by al-Sayyid Zarad,'° three main techniques
are employed in the structure and the character of the text: paralipsis, sum-
mary, and ellipsis. These significantly restrict the text's dimensions." Paralip-
sis means subtraction of data concerning the characters, their identities, their
social status, their professions, their ages, etc. The text says nothing about
where the entire story takes place. Paralipsis likewise means lack of data
pertaining to textual complexity, which is presented as a predetermined and
accomplished fact without explanation. The story concerns a character of
whom we know nothing except his sex; even this information is provided
indirectly, just by the use of the masculine gender. The reader knows noth-
ing about the identity of this character, his age, profession, social status,
economic status, physical appearance, name, environment, and so on. The
story also refers to minor characters who are supposed to arrive on horse-
back, but nothing else is known about them either. There are no data about
the situation in which the major character is involved involuntarily. Nobody
knows what caused him to fall to the ground. The story starts from the fall
itself as a fact, with no detail. Namely, on both the characterization level
and the event level the reader feels that many facts are missing, as if he has
started reading the story from the middle, or more precisely from a certain
point after the missing "actual" and predictable opening. 12 The paralipsis of
these data turns the story into a more general and non-local entity, which is
not grounded in a specific or well-defined reality. The story is transposed
beyond the limits of time so that every reader, at any time or place, can
treat it as if it were written especially for him or her and dealt with his or
her personal problems. It contains no explicit textual data that may evince
any Arab aspect of national or regional identity. The only Arab aspect in
the text is the Arabic language in which it is written. If it is translated into
another language, nothing at all of Arab culture and life will be left in it.
This paralipsis imparts a universal identity to the text and creates the
impression that this text was written in Arabic only by chance.
The second technique, summary, is interpreted as a lack of event detail-

in Lohafer and Clarey, Short Story Theory at a Crossroads, p. 28; Austin M. Wright, "On
Defining the Short Story," p. 52.
10
Al-Sayyid Zarad, "Inkifa"' (A Fall), Adab wa-Nagd, 23 (1986), p. 47. See English and
Arabic Appendices.
" For more information on these devices, see G. Genette, Narrative Di.scourse:An
Essay
in Method, trans. Jane E. Lewin, Ithaca NY, Cornell University Press, 1980, pp. 52-53, 95-99,
106-9.
''- Leibold notes that the
brevity of short fiction means "the lack of a long introduction and
conclusion," Roland Leibold, "Robert Louis Stevenson: 'Was it Murder?'," Anglistik &
Englischunterricht, 23 (1984), p. 41 (special issue on the very short story).
64

ing. Instead of detailed scenes, the author uses reporting and telling to pro-
vide only basic and primary details. In Zarad's "A Fall" the first line con-
sists of three very short and well-defined sentences. They in fact constitute
a concise report and form the skeleton or the potential of a detailed scene.
The following data are missing: a detailed description of the fall itself, its
physical and emotional force, and its impact on the character. There are no
details about the character's ability to walk after the fall, including going on
with the walk, the manner of walking, and the direction. In the second line,
when the character falls again, the writer gives no further details of this fall,
of the loss of ability to get up and go on. All the occurrences in the story
are presented as if they were chapter headings of scenes existing only poten-
tially. Contrary to paralipsis, which refers to the background and to the
"auxiliary" data of character, place, and time, as well as to the complexity
factors in the texts, summary refers to the occurrences themselves as they
are actually reported in the text. Accordingly, the story at hand is made up
of very short and detached sentences. The text does not have the deep breath
of an entire and detailed scene. Paralipsis refers to the framework of the
fabula while summary refers mainly to the details of the fabula
The third characteristic, ellipsis, is interpreted as skipping whole periods
of time.14 In Zarad's "A Fall" there is no information about the interval
between the first fall in the first line and the second fall in the second line.
The author goes from one segment of time to the next without describing
the sequence between them. Underlying the ellipsis technique is the princi-
ple of selection. The author has chosen isolated, separate, and very short
periods of time, with no chronological sequence, and he presents them in an
entirely selective way.
These three techniques create the impression that the entire fabula is a
matter of one instant. If the novel deals with a whole prolonged reality, and
the short story deals only with a piece of reality, then the very short story
deals with one moment of reality," as can be seen in the following story:

'3 Fabula (story), according to Formalist criticism, is "the aggregate of mutually related
events reported in the work. No matter how the events were originally arranged in the work
and despite their original order of introduction, in practice the story [fabulal may be told in
the actual chronological and causal order of events." Fabula, in brief, is "the action itself,"
Boris Tomashevsky, "Thematics," in Lee T. Lemon and Marion J. Reis, translation and intro-
duction, Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays, Lincoln and London, University of
Nebraska Press, 1965, pp. 66-67; for a useful comparison between "fabula" (story) and
"sjuzet" (plot) see pp. 61-78.
14
Amy Hempel describes "minimalism" as "a lot of times what's not reported in your work
is more important than what actually appears on the page. Frequently the emotional focus of
the story is some underlying event that may not be described or even referred to in the story,"
Jo Sapp, "Interview with Amy Hempel," Missouri Review, 16 (1993), pp. 82-83.
15
Mary Louise Pratt believes that, contrary to "wholeness" of the novel, what defines a
short story is its "fragmentary" nature and its "incompleteness."See Pratt, "The Short Story,"
 65

The pretty woman suddenly looked away from the young man. She acciden-
tally saw him feeling about his sexual organ. The young man disappeared
among a throng of human beings and the pretty woman did too.'6
This story by Muhammad Nujaym from Morocco illustrates the momentary
aspect of the fabula in a very short story. It uses all the techniques men-
tioned in a particularly strong and conspicuous manner. The times of all the
events in the text are compressed into a fraction of a second. The three tech-
niques leave much empty space in the text, and there are many gaps on the
fabula level. However, it should be stressed that the lack of data on the fab-
ula level can definitely affect the essence and the form of the general mean-
ing of the text. These gaps create an incomplete text, which the reader is
required to fill when communicating with it.

2. A Reactive Character

In "Khadra"' by Zakariyya Tämirl7 the protagonist is in a position of reac-

tion and not of initiating action. The story whose title, "Khadra'," signifies
green (f) and is to be taken as the name of the woman protagonist, starts
with a given and predetermined situation to which the character finds it hard
to react.18 The woman is compelled right from the start to listen to a stri-
dent song, over which she has no control and whose effect is powerful and
undesirable. Immediately after this very short opening, a process of the woman's s
coping with her gradual transformation into an apple tree begins. The entire
story is in fact a concise description of an ongoing response to the meta-
morphosis of the woman's ontological identity; that is, the character's role
depends on the existence of a process or an occurrence that precedes the
character. The story is structured in a way that combines the gradual meta-
morphosis imposed on the woman and her response to it. The essence of
this metamorphosis seems physical, but it profoundly affects the woman's
emotional condition. Her coping is a protective strategy in the face of a real-
ity that is much stronger than she.19 This entire protective activity is in fact

p. 175. Following Pratt's approach, such a comparison between the short story and the very
short story is definitely needed.
'6
Muhammad Nujaym, "Qisas Qasira Jiddan," al-Naqid, 81 (March, 1995), p. 21. See
Arabic Appendix.
" "
ZakariyyaTamir,al-Ra'd, Damascus,ManshuratIttihad al-Kuttdbal-'Arab, 1970,"Khadra"'
pp. 77-78. See English and Arabic Appendices.
11See Robert
Shapard and James Thomas, eds., Sudden Fiction International: Sixty Short-
Short Storie.s, p. 20. For more information on the role of the character as an anti-hero in
Tdmir's literary works, see 'Abd al-Razzdq 'Id, al-'Alam al-Qasasi li-ZakariyyaTamir: Wihdat
al-Bunya al-Dhihniyya wal-Faniyyufi Tamazzuqiha al-Mutlaq, Beirut, Dar al-Fdrdbi, 1989,
pp. 43-92.
19For more details on the characters of Tamir's stories, see
Sabry Hafez, "The Modern
66

a reaction which may succeed perfectly or partially, or fail absolutely. Unrelated

to the consequences of this reaction to a given situation-whether this char-
acter becomes a hero, a semi-hero, or an anti-hero2°-the character does not
initiate a situation which can last throughout the text. What matters is that
the very short story places the character at the center of the text in opposi-
tion to the hostile reality presented at the opening as a ,fait accompli, and
not vice versa. This is a reactive character, and the text focuses on her
behavior as if she were being tested. The test itself is important, but the
character's behavior in this test is more important since this is a very short
story. This genre, in contrast with longer genres, does not deal with the
problems and conflicts themselves but with ways of coping with them. There-
fore, it is usually thought that the principal element is the character and not
the reality. In this story, and in another by Tamir to be discussed below, the
formation of the protagonist's reactive character is a consequence of em-
ploying a distinct version of "making strange" (see below). But this making
strange is not always the condition for the construction of a reactive char-
acter. A situation in which a reactive character is presented without use of
making strange is definitely possible.
Because this activity in the very short story is reactive, there can be min-
imal initiating activities. Moreover, the reaction in itself is arguably a sort
of individual activity, even if it is a direct consequence of an external fac-
tor. Since the very short story-like any other literary genre-deals with
conflicts and with a hostile and harsh reality, the character is closer to a
position of defense than of attack. Defense can, in many cases, be perceived
as some sort of attack. Therefore, the reactive activity is to be interpreted
as one caused by a textual factor, whether it explicitly exists in the text or
is merely implied. Even more important, owing to the very short and con-
cise character of the genre, there is not enough space to initiate and develop
new moves and afterwards to respond to them, as in longer genres. The
opposite could also be argued, namely, that due to the lack of initiated
moves and activity on the part of the character the dimensions of the very
short story are restricted, and it becomes even shorter.

3. Techniques of Making Strange

"Making strange," in different versions, is one of the most important liter-

ary techniques that contribute to the shortening of a text and to the restric-
tion of its number of words. The contribution of the Russian Formalists in

Arabic Short Story," in M.M. Badawi, ed., Modern Arabic Literature, Cambridge, 1992,
p. 325.
20 For more information on these
types of heroism, see Ibrahim Taha, "$Jrai al-Batal al-
Hadith fi Qissa li-Muhammad 'Ali Tdhd," al-Kar-mil,18/19 (1997-1998), pp. 301-30.
 67

the first decades of the 20th century was vital for the definition of literature
as a self-aware medium that, instead of just passing on direct and well-
defined messages, seeks to make the reader analyze the extra-literary real-
ity. Victor Shklovsky's distinction between what is "perceived" and what is
"known" underpins the need to continue the process of literary communica-
tion between the text and the reader .2 The prolongation of this process is
made possible only when the objects become unfamiliar. Making the textual
reality strange through diminishing the amount of the "known," the "famil-
iar," and the channeled textual elements and replacing them with foreign
elements turns it into a symbolic text. Making strange creates a symbolic
dimension, but the opposite is not true. Symbolism is created when things
are said in an unfamiliar, inexplicit, and indirect manner. However, making
strange has great potential for restricting the number of words used in the
text. The more the textual data are made strange, the less need there is for
words and detailed explanations, and the text becomes less explicit and less
direct. Communication with the text becomes a long, slow, and somehow
difficult process.
One of the most distinctive marks of shortness is the employment of dif-
ferent variations of "making strange" as formulated by Shklovsky. Making
strange may be reflected mainly in the formation of the characters and
events. When a certain character in a narrative text is designed and behaves
contrary to the expectations and the logic of a familiar extra-textual reality,
elements of making strange can be found in the text." As noted, Tamir's
"Khadrd"' describes a woman who one night stands in the middle of a gar-
den and starts slowly to turn into an apple tree, little by little, together with
the changing seasons, starting in autumn and ending in summer. This proc-
ess has clear and well-defined points of beginning and ending. It begins
with a strident song that reaches the woman's ears and ends with her being
cut down-by now she is a tree-by the owner of the garden. Any inter-
pretation of this story must rely on the identification of the strident song
with the strange process of change in the ontological identity of the central
character.
The woman's change of identity, as presented in the text, takes place
without an abundance of words or detailed explanations needed for the
reader to interpret the text quickly and confidently. This relinquishing of
detail leaves many gaps in the text; these may be formulated as questions
referring to the sexual identity of the protagonist as a woman and not as a

21See Victor
Shklovsky, "Art as Technique," in Lee T. Lemon and Marion J. Reis, trans-
lation and introduction, Russian Formalist Cr?iticism:Four Essays, pp. 12, 18.
'-'-For more information about the dream as a
major technique in Tamir's works, see al-
Rashid Bush'ayr, Dirasat fi al-Qi!j!jaal-'Aiabi_yyaal-Qa!j¡ra: Muqarahat fi al-Ru'ya wal-Shakl,
Damascus, al-Ahali, 1995, pp. 9-22.
68

man, her traits and social position, her fierce objection to the change, the
meaning of her metamorphosis into a tree in general and into an apple tree
in particular, and her refusal following the metamorphosis to yield fruit,
contrary to all the other trees of the garden. There are many more questions,
concerning the identity of the garden's owner, his age, his role in the text,
the meaning of his deed at the end of the text, his relationship with the
woman-tree, the significance of the strident song, its source, its meaning,
and its effect on the woman-tree. All these questions, which are a direct
result of making strange, indicate numerous unclosed gaps in the text that
the reader is required to fill in through a fascinating process of literary com-
munication with the story. This is a story which asks more questions than
it answers. There is a division of roles between the text and the reader. The
text poses questions and the reader tries to answer, relying on the sparse
data provided by the text. This division requires an active partnership
between the reader and the text in the construction of the meaning of the
text. In such a situation, the reader does not conform to the role of passive
consumer.
The symbolic event involved in any making strange impels the author to
exploit the immense power and potential of brevity in order to activate the
reader in a conspicuous manner. First, the metamorphosis of the woman
ensures the reader's alertness. This is in fact an a priori and primary step in
the process of communication with the text. The metamorphosis as pre-
sented in the text shocks the reader, does not leave him indifferent, and
invites him to get ready for a long and informative process. Moreover, the
metamorphosis as a strange event compels the reader to activate his con-
ceptual system and demonstrate knowledge, willingness, and ability in order
to interpret the text. The reader must discover the gaps-caused by the tech-
nique of making strange-and respond to the appropriate questions despite
their being numerous and difficult.
In another story by Tamir, "The Prey," 23 the author has chosen a fish as
the central character of the text. The use of animals in various narrative
genres is not new and is well known to us from the classical and popular
Arabic literary traditions. In the previous story, the gradual metamorphosis
of the protagonist from a woman into a tree is shown as strange and sym-
bolic. This story includes no such metamorphosis, but features from the start
the strange utilization of a character that is a fish. What is important at this
stage of discussing making strange is not the peculiar events, which are
important in themselves, but their conveyance. The fish is the character
who tells what happened to him after he was caught by the fisherman. It is
clear that the story includes a double making strange, namely using the

23
Zakariyyd Tamir, al-Numur ft al-Yawm al-'Ashii-, Jerusalem, Manshürat Salah al-Din,
1979. "al-Farisa" (The Prey), pp. 120-21. See English and Arabic Appendices.
 69

fish to represent a person and conveying the events from an impossible

viewpoint. Had the author granted the narrative authority to the fisherman
and not to the fish, the story would have appeared completely different.
First, this action in itself would not have seemed strange because it is nat-
ural, familiar, and normal for a person to narrate a story. Second, the gen-
eral meaning of the text would have been entirely otherwise. It is vital that
the fish present the events in the text, not the fisherman, since the purpose
is to represent the feeling, position, and conception of the victim, told in the
first person. Beyond the contribution of making strange to shocking the
reader and leading him, after a long and slow process of communication
with the text, to observe reality, making strange seems not merely a means
but also, and principally, a purpose.
The choice of a fish to represent man as a victim, and not of one man
to represent another, constitutes an evaluative and judgmental statement
determined in advance by the author. The purpose of this choice is to dis-
tinguish the attitude of a person to his life from the attitude of a non-human
creature to life. Without going into detail, it seems important for the fisher-
man to live, to make a living, and to survive, while the fish accords impor-
tance to questions such as how to live and how to survive. In other words,
the distinction between life itself and the meaning of life constitutes the
essence of the difference between the man and the fish in this story. This is
an essential and decisive difference in the story, one that could not be
achieved without making strange. This distinction is meant to tell something
about man and not about fish. Yet this statement could not be effective,
clear, comprehensive, and convincing without the use of making strange.
The choice of the fish for the role of narrator only confirms this contribu-
tion and reinforces its meaning and role. The fisherman, who is preoccupied
with the matter of survival, could not have formulated the statements of the
fish had he been chosen as the narrator. A person constantly preoccupied
with the question of physical existence cannot deal with the meaning and
essence of life.
As with the use of making strange in "Khadra'," through its use in "The
Prey" the author manages to shake the reader out of his indifference and
make him perform his task in the process of communication with a text that
is somewhat difficult. In both cases, making strange attains two main objec-
tives by which it approximates short fiction to poetry:24 it makes the text
symbolic and it restricts the number of words. These two objectives consti-
tute one of the most obvious signs of the generic identity of the very short
story.

24
According to Sabry Hafez, Tamir is the poet of Arabic short fiction due to his use of
various techniques of poetry in his narrative texts. See Sabry Hafez, "The Modern Arabic
Short Story," in M.M. Badawi, ed., Modern Arabic Literature, p. 322.
70

4. The Motif

The motif and the leitmotif are textual data that recur with a certain fre-
quency and make the reader notice them. This recurrence also serves as a
technique for shortening the text. The use of a recurrent motif can focus the
general meaning of the text on one textual datum. Instead of scattering var-
ious codes of meaning throughout a long text, the use of a motif allows the
author to restrict the text and present the meaning at a certain density within
one recurring datum. Like the motif that recurs in the form of an idea or
theme in a multitude of texts, the motif that recurs in a single text can elu-
cidate its general meaning, or at least guide the reader to such a meaning.
The motif may exercise its power to restrict and focus the text and may
serve as a source for intensive and complex active participation by the reader
in the process of text interpretation."
The story "Why Did the Bird Fly Away?" by Jamal al-Ghitani'6 is divided
into seven very short and equal parts with well-defined and clear borders.
There is no chronological connection through the seven parts of the story.
Instead, the connecting thread is the "kiss" motif. Midu (Muhammad)-the
small child who is the major character of the story-desires to kiss every-
thing he wants. This strong desire lies at the center of the text and provides
the gist of the story. The lack of chronological order, namely the lack of
gradual and continuous development of the events, allows the writer to jump
from one scene to the next and also to shorten the text and end it abruptly.
The motif in this story-the kiss-is the major starting point of numerous
questions which the reader must ask and answer when trying to interpret the
text. Such questions concern Midu's identity, the match between the char-
acter and the motif, the identity of things and objects he wants to kiss, their
treatment as categories of classification, the division of the text into seven
very short parts, the definition of the places in which he manages or fails
to get what he wants, and the special place of the bird-in the seventh and
last part of the text-among the number of things, objects, and persons that
Midu tries to kiss. Detailed attention to these questions finally leads to a
deeper understanding of the motif and of the entire text.
My own attention to them led me to a definition of the range of the text's
overall meaning. Midu's desire to kiss is interpreted as a desire for com-
munication with his immediate and circumscribed environment and with
the world at large. Without going into detail concerning text interpretation

25 For more details on the term motif, see Muhammad `Inani, al-Mitstalah?ital-Adabiyyaal-
Haditha: Dirasa wa-Mu'jam Itiqlizi (Amhi, Cairo, Longman, 1996, pp. 17-18; Majdi Wahba,
Mu'jam Mustalahat al-Adab, Beirut, Maktabat Lubnan, 1974, p. 333.
26 Jamal al-Ghitani,
Nafthat Masur (A Consumptive's Spitting), Cairo and Kuwait, Dar
Su'ad al-Sabah, 1993. "Limddhd Tdra al-'Uxfir?" (Why Did the Bird Fly Away?), p. 147. See
English and Arabic Appendices.
 71

through the motif-as this is not the intention of this article-we note that
Midu's desire to kiss is the central or key code in the entire process of inter-
pretation, unrelated to the consequences of this process. The motif, in fact,
is a textual datum that dominates the text and its meaning. Control of the
text is made possible by means of secondary codes that accompany this
motif, as mentioned above. The reader's role in this case-the case of a text
dominated by motif-becomes focused around a well-defined textual ele-
ment. This focusing makes the reader's task complex, ramified, and inter-
esting since it compels the reader, in the first stage, to identify the system
of codes attached to the motif, to analyze them, to interconnect them, and
to discuss the relations between them and the motif. In the second stage
the reader is asked to define the range of the text's meaning in light of the
conclusions reached at the end of the first stage; and in the third stage
the reader is asked to propose-based on the data obtained at the end of
the second stage-a more specific and local meaning, if this is possible.
Namely, the motif here does not exactly make the reader's task of text inter-
pretation easier, faster, and more flowing, since the motif in this story-as
in any other very short story-is based on various textual characteristics
which contribute to ambiguity and obscurity in the text. These may be the
brevity of text, lack of chronological order, restriction of data identified with
a certain specific and local reality, lack of detailed information about the
central character of the text, and more. In some sense we could refer to the
motif in this story as a substitute for all of these qualities and characteris-
tics, and as such it could be interpreted as a super-technique which leads to
the employment of other auxiliary techniques.
The motif, according to this discussion, is interpreted as a concentration
of various data on two levels: that of form and that of content. In the very
short story, the motif, in terms of shape, structure, and narrative, is supported
by various literary techniques, while in terms of content, theme, and mean-
ing, it is interpreted as the essence of the general meaning and as the start-
ing point for the entire communicative process between the text and the
reader. On both levels the motif contributes to the restriction of the text's
dimensions, to its obscurity, and to the activation of the reader in the proc-
ess of textual interpretation. Interestingly, the motif, as employed in al-Ghitani's s
"Why Did the Bird Fly Away," has a clear poetic character.

5. Open Ending and Gap Theory

The open ending, unlike the closed ending, is interpreted as a "relinquish-

ing" of part of the classic and natural role of the writer, which is to write
the text in its entirety. The open ending indicates an incomplete and unclear
text which does not provide answers to various problems and questions that
72

it raises." If the process of writing a text is identified with the writer's role,
the open ending transfers part of the writing process to the reader, namely
to complete the missing parts and offer answers to its questions. The open
ending can take a number of different forms, such as omitting data on the
fabula level, interrupting the plot at its climax, posing a question at the end,
etc. It activates the reader and involves him in the process of building up
the meaning of the text.21 If an open ending is a kind of gap in the text, the
reader's position is reinforced both in the process of reading and in the
process of interpretation. Gaps, according to Wolfgang Iser, indicate a lack
of textual data which can make the reader's task easier, faster, and safer in
the process of communication with the text. The need to fill in the missing
parts is natural and obvious. People usually find it hard to accept incomplete
situations. The Gestalt approach, which claims that people tend to ignore
holes and gaps existing in the object by filling them in their consciousness,
confirms the human desire for and aspiration to perfection. This inner urge
or natural need stimulates the reader to read the text over and over again,
as much as needed, until he finds the way to fill the gaps of the text. Gaps
lie at the basis of the definition of open endings of any kind. 21
Al-Ghitani's story "Why Did the Bird Fly Away?" ends with a question
which is also the title of the story. Generally, any real question indicates a
lack of information on the part of the inquirer. Any such question invites a
third party to fill in the missing elements. In literature this third party is
obviously the reader. A question which has no answer in the text leaves a
gap. The question which ends this story brings the reader directly to its title,
which is a para-textual datum. The story starts with a question and ends
with the same question; that is, the entry into and the exit from the text con-
stitute an enigma for the reader, who wishes to cope with it. The introduc-
tion into the text in this case is accompanied by expectations and hopes that
this enigma will be solved by the quest for the answer in the text. The
reader perceives his role in such a case as a quest. When he fails to find
the answer within the text itself he is forced to carry this question with him
outside the text, after the reading process ends, namely at the end of his first
contact with the text. However, the reader's role after leaving the text dif-

27 For more information on this topic, see Nabila Ibrahim, Fanrt al-Qa.Y$:Fi al-Nazal-iyya
myal-Tatbiq,Cairo, Maktabat Gharib, n.d., pp. 246-48.
For more details on the open and incomplete ending, see Robert Adams, Strains of
Discord: Studies in Litermy Openness, Ithaca NY, Cornell University Press, 1968, p. 13; John
Gerlach, Towards the End, Montgomery, University of Alabama Press, 1985; Deborah
Roberts, Francis Dunn, and Don Fowler, eds., Classical Closure: Reading the End in Greek
and Latin Literature, Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1997, p. 138; Mariana Tor-
govnick, Clo.sur-ein the Novel, Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 13.
29 For more details on Iser's
gap theory, see Wolfgang Iser, "The Reading Process: A
Phenomenological Approach," New Liter-aryHistory, 3 (1971), pp. 279-299; lbrdhim Taha,
"Nizam al-Tafjiya wa-Hiwariyyat al-Qira'a,"al-Karmil, 14 (1993), pp. 95-129.
 73

fers from what it was when he entered it. His feeling at the end of the text,
in his renewed encounter with the question that he has already met in the
title, differs from his feeling at that first encounter. At the end of the text
the reader feels that more serious activity is required to answer the question.
Beyond the technical activity of searching inside the text he is required to
invest more effort and to offer an answer to the question relying on the data
of the text itself. Such reliance also demands the conceptual activation of
the reader, his previous experience with reading literature, his general edu-
cation, etc.
The question at the end of al-Ghitani's story imparts to it a circular
structure, which may be interpreted in two opposite ways: either this circu-
larity indicates a condition of reverting to the starting point, a repetition that
creates pessimistic feelings of failure to find the answer, or it indicates a
condition of closedness, which stimulates a feeling of success, that every-
thing is over and done with. Those who analyze the text on a deeper level
may find support for both states. Any interpretation of the text must be
aware of these two opposite interpretations. The first seems to stimulate the
reader to invest significant effort to reach the second, namely, the feeling
that everything is over and done with. Following this line of thought, we
could treat Midu's question at the end of the story as real, in search of an
answer, or as rhetorical, in which case what is important is not the answer
itself but the protest implied by it. A combination of the two is also possi-
ble. In keeping with our discussion of this story in the previous section,
Midu may be looking for a reason for his lack of success in communicat-
ing with the overall reality, and at the same time also protesting against this
failure, regardless of the factors which led to it. This combination is based
on the assumption that any protest indicates a condition of lack and absence.
In any event, the question at the end of the text indicates a condition of
openness, which the reader must cope with. The extensive activation of the
reader in the process of communication with the text by the use of different
versions of gaps-including the open ending-is one of the most distinctive
marks of the very short story.

6. Lyrical Diction

According to Susan Hunter Brown, the short story works like poetry, not
like novels.30 I would add that this is particularly true for the very short
story, assuming that it is in fact a continuation and a radicalization of the
techniques used by the short story. As stated earlier, modern fiction tends to

30 See Suzanne Hunter Brown, "Discourse

Analysis and Short Story," in Lohafer and
Calrey, Short Story Theory at a Crossroads, p. 234.
74

blur the borders between various genres.31 Some would claim that the poetic
dimension and the figurative style in the short genres of narrative fiction are
a function of their minimalism. To examine these assumptions and beliefs,
I would suggest consideration of the very short story "A Body" by Rifqi
Badaw i,12 in its original language, Arabic. This story is undoubtedly closer
to poetry than the previous stories discussed here, in terms of use of lan-
guage. First, the narrative element in this story is rather weak, so there is
not much activity by the characters regarding time and space. Instead of pre-
senting events, the story makes use of description, a technique which is the
dominant element of the text. It contains no development of events, whether
gradual or brief. Instead of a diachronic development, which is a continu-
ous process, the story gives a description of a synchronic, local, and specific
occurrence. The time in this very short story is just a few passing moments.
We are presented with a body which secretes sweat while involved in a sex-
ual situation. This body, which is in the midst of sexual turbulence, first
loses its connection with time and space. Perhaps because of this sexual sit-
uation-which attenuates the body's connection with the environment-the
narrative element of the text weakens, that is, the content of the text con-
tributes to the detachment of the story from fiction and its approximation to
poetry. In addition, the poetic aspect of the story is reinforced by the use of
poetic conventions of lyrical and indirect language, metamorphosis, rhyme,
and repetition, whereby every single word has a significant role in the text."
The repetition turns the words/sentences which appear at a certain frequency
in the text into a kind of motif. The recurrent motif, as discussed earlier,
is notable for its focusing power, which diminishes the need for detailed
explanations. This motif is commonly identified more with the nature of
poetry than with the nature of fiction. The employment of lyrical language
in this story is not random, nor is it technical or marginal in the overall
design of the text. It seems to be intentional and conscious: hardly any sen-
tence in the story is without a lyrical element of figurative, rhyming, and
metaphoric language. Nor is the general structure or the inner division of
the story random. It appears to be divided into three very short parts, each

31The interrelations between

prose and poetry have been widely discussed. See Suzanne
Bernard, Le poeme en prose de Baudelaire jusqu'd nos jours, Paris, Librairie Nizet, 1994;
Ahmad Bazun, Qa.5fdatal-Nathr-al-(Arahiyya: al-Itar al-Nw.ari, Beirut, Ddr al-Fikr al-Jadid,
1996;StephenFredman,Poet's Pr-ose:The Crisis inAmericanVerse,2d ed., Cambridge,Cambridge
University Press, 1990.
32
Rifqi Badawi, "Jasad" (A Body), lhda', 4 (April, 1995), p. 115. See English and Arabic
Appendices.
33If "a
story [as outlined by N. Friedman] binds us more closely to the sentence than a
novel and less closely to the word than a poem" (Friedman, "Recent Short Story Theories,"
p. 27), the very short story binds us more closely to the word than the short story and less
closely to it than a poem.
 75

beginning with the sentence "This body overflows with sweat." The triple
design is consciously thought out. The repetition at the start of each part,
akin to anaphora in poetry, reinforces the impression that this story was
written from the outset in terms closer to poetry than to fiction.
Another reminder of poetry more than any other genre is the ambiguity
and obscurity in the story. Poetry, because of its evident tendency to employ
indirect and inexplicit language and its use of various literary techniques
that produce ambiguity and multiple meanings, is deemed not to attempt to
give a message, at least not clearly and directly, but to hint at such a direc-
tion.34 The obscurity of the story is a function of various factors, such as
shortness of the text, use of lyrical characteristics, and vagueness of the
chronological, causal, and logical relation between the sentences delivered
in one sequence. This makes the reading process extremely difficult and
slows it down. In several cases the obscurity in the story results from the
lack of syntax in the sentence. Above all, figurative and metaphorical sub-
jective sentences are extensively used throughout the text. In addition to the
familiar characteristics of poetry, the lyrical nature of this story, as pre-
sented above, is fostered by the presence of the characteristics and tech-
niques described in the previous sections.

Conclusion

The creation of a new genre is a continuous process with two dynamics:

extra-literary and intra-literary. This article has not focused on the extra-
literary dynamic, for that would require a different conceptual framework.
Instead, it has concentrated on the intra-literary dynamic that has led to
the crystallization of the generic identity of the very short story in Arabic.
The existing genres-as understood by al-Kharrat-fail to contend with the
socio-political reality. In the Arab world the general interaction among exist-
ing genres has produced inter-generic activity between the short story and
poetry. The outcome has been the gradual creation of the very short story
as an intermediate genre, which inherits its characteristics from both poetry
and fiction.
My first intention was to classify the components of the generic identity
of the very short Arabic story according to two categories: that which relates
to the very short character of the genre and that which relates to its lyrical

34
Rudiger Imbof believes that ambiguity is a very important factor for active participation
by the reader in a literary communicationprocess with short fiction. Ambiguity, which means
the lack of an obvious message in a text, greatly activates the reader in the process of the-
matizing the text. See Rudiger Imbof, "Minimal Fiction, or the Question of Scale," Anglistik
& Englischunterricht, 23 (1984), p. 162.
76

nature. However, it is diflicult to distinguish the various components that

simultaneously contribute to the very short nature and to the lyrical nature
of the genre. If we take making strange as an example of such a compo-
nent, it-like motif and gaps-also contributes to the restriction of the num-
ber of words in the text and its ambiguity and obscurity, and this is one of
the distinctive markers of poetry. This di?culty in classifying the compo-
nents forming the generic identity of the very short story reinforces the con-
clusion that the components relating to brevity are not just technical but also
contribute to the character and essence of this genre.
First, the problematic nature of this domain of genre discussion had to be
emphasized. For this purpose, I examined closely and thoroughly the state
of research on the short story in terms of genre. I was not at all surprised
to sense the same problematic character existing in the more familiar and
institutionalized genres with a longer tradition, such as the short story. The
problem in this context is not a function of this genre or that, but primarily
a function of an open conceptual and philosophical issue. However, the
logic on which researchers base their discussions of various genres is the
logic of familiarity, discussed in terms of imagination, partnership, and dif-
ference, as stated at the beginning of this article. Most components of gen-
eric identity of the Arabic very short story discussed in the body of the
article are neither new nor specific to this genre. However, those compo-
nents-whether identified with fiction or with poetry-have become the
most distinctive marks of the Arabic very short story for two reasons: the
first concerns the radicalization of these components, which ultimately leads
to stronger and sharper effects. The use of poetic language in various gen-
res of fiction is thus not a new technique, but radicalization of the use of
this technique in the very short story turns the lyrical language into the main
part of the text, until the narrative characteristics of the text are diminished.
The second concerns the frequent use of these components. Analysis of hun-
dreds of very short stories, from Arabic and general literature," has led me
to the conclusion that the generic elements discussed in this article recur at
a high frequency.

University of Haifa IBRAHIM TAHA

Considerationof many very short stories from general literature-compiled in the anthol-
ogy edited by Shapard and Thomas, Sudden Fiction Inter-national:Sixty Short-Short Stor-ies,
and those which appear in the German periodical Anglistik & Englischunterr-icht18 (1982),
23 (1984)-shows that the samc generic components discussed here also frequently appear in
'
the very short story worldwide.
 77

Appendix I

A Fall

by
Al-Sayyid Zarad

He fell down ... shook off the dust ... and continued the pursuit ... He fell
down ... lost the ability to get up, and lost the will to do so ... he closed his eyes
and listened to the rattle of their approaching horses.
He wished the earth would give him a spot that would contain him and shut him
in. The torture frightens him ... and the horses are raging.
His face greets the damp earth, but it heeds not ... time red-hot passes by ...
nobody arrives ... He must get up again and move on.
trans. George J. Kanazi

Khadra'

by
. Zakariyya Tamir

The woman stood in the garden; high above her was a moon of yellow stone, and
her feet that touched the dust were bare. From far away, a coarse melody reached
her ears, and she bent her head, defeated. Fear at that moment was a white bird,
with a cut throat.
The woman's body trembled and her eyes filled with tears; her flesh started get-
ting harder and harder; roots sprouted in her feet and drove deep into the dry earth,
while the woman was still crying, with her head bent down. Suddenly, a silent cry
of horror was heard from the woman, and she threw up her arms trying to release
herself from the earth, but her arms dried up and remained in that position; the body
waved to the right and to the left, the tears gradually dried from her eyes, and her
flesh turned into wood, covered with cut skin.
Winter came later; its water washed the woman fixed in the earth, then came
spring, and green tiny leaves started to appear on the woman's arms and hair, then
many blossoms burst forth.
The sun of summer covered the garden, and the owner of the garden came. He
was an old man; he found that the branches of the apple trees in his garden were
full of fruit, except one tree whose blossoms did not turn into fruit. Disappointed,
he grabbed his axe and rushed to the trunk of the tree; he struck it again and again
till the tree fell dead over the earth.
trans. George J. Kanazi
78

The Prey

by
Zakariyya Tamir

The cloud, the music, the roses, and the children's dolls were burnt. I found no
place to hide except a river of water. I lived there many years, lonely, yielding to
a vague tranquility till, one day, there came an old fisherman. He looked at me with
amazement and sorrow, then said; "I thought you were a fish."
I said, pretending to be cheerful: "Don't make that mistake, man is better and
more wonderful than fish."
He looked at the setting sun with exhausted eyes and said: "My poor children,
they have to go to sleep hungry tonight."
I bowed my head in shame and said to him: "How could you believe what I told
you? I was joking. I am a fish."
The fisherman said: "But fish do not speak."
I said with a trembling voice: "Did you forget that the sea is rich and its fish are
of many kinds? I am a strange fish and speak like human beings."
The fisherman asked joyfully: "Are you telling the truth, or you are still joking?"
Without hesitation I answered: "Your question is silly. Why should I lie?"
The fisherman said nothing. He carried me to his house panting with fatigue.
There his wife cut me with the knife into slices of different sizes and put them into
a frying pan full of boiling oil. I did not cry out in pain nor cry for help. I re-
mained in the pan till I was well cooked. Then the fisherman's children began eat-
ing me greedily. But I was sad some time later because the children complained that
my flesh tasted bad, though they continued to devour me.
My sadness increased when I realized that in a coming day I will surely return
to the depth of the earth. Then I will have to live in dark dirty places till I will have
the opportunity one day to see the sun as a tree-root or a rose.
trans. Hann� Ab�Hann�

Why Did the Bird Fly Away?

by
Jamal al-Ghitani

(1)
His father prepared to leave, but Midu embraced his legs, smelled his smell. He
wanted him to stay, not leave him as happened every day.... He used to cry, but
that did not always prevent his father from leaving. Today he cried: "I want to kiss
Papa." His father bent down and kissed Midu, and Midf made some noise with his
lips; his father opened the door, smoothed his cheeks, and waved, just as he did
every day.
(2)
Over the roof his mother pointed to the orange disappearing circle and said it was
the sun. Midu gazed through the sky; after a while he said he wanted to hug the
sun. His mother said it was going to its home. Midu said he wanted to kiss the sun.
His mother laughed and said it is far away; send it a kiss like that. He nodded
his head slightly. He kissed the air in the direction of the sun, but it continued its
slow slide to the horizon.
 79

(3)
Suhair, the daughter of the woman who sells milk, stood up. She is as tall as he.
He looks at her while holding his mother's robe. She looks at him while her mother
pours the milk. Whenever he steps forward his mother pushes him back and asks
him to hide and not show his head so he doesn't catch cold; this night he did not
tolerate being pushed back into the house.
"I want to kiss the girl ... I want to kiss the girl and then she'll play with
me..."
His mother responded: "Go inside, Midu ..."
(4)
His mother said to the fat lady that the life is sometimes cruel, but sometimes sweet.
Listen to her, why is life sometimes cruel and sometimes sweet? He pushed his
mother several times before she paid attention to him.
"I want to kiss life...."
"Kiss, Midu."
He turned but did not see life. He said again he wanted to kiss life so that it
would never become cruel.
"I told you kiss, Midu...."
But when he did not see life, which he wanted to embrace and kiss, he wept.
(5)
He rushed into the salon. He got under the chair. He tried to sit on the canopy; he
went back to the center of the room, looked at the picture of his mother that was
hanging on the wall; he put his hands behind his back and cried, addressing the
picture:
"Get down, Mom, get down so I can kiss you."
(6)
He kissed the hand of the neighbor. His mother said that Midu wanted to kiss any-
thing. He asks to kiss the broom and the refrigerator and the wooden horse and the
tree by the house and the wall of the club and the street; and he cries because she
did not bring down the moon for him to kiss it, and the doorman's daughter and
the medication bottle and Papa's books, and even Papa's shoes. For two days he
held them tight and said: Papa is sweet; Papa's shoes are sweet; then he said: I want
to kiss him; so he'll stay with me ... She shouted at him.
(7)
The bird stood on the tiles of the balcony. It jumped to the right and jumped to the
left. Muhammad gave a sharp cry.
Koko Koko. He stretched his hands toward the bird. I love Koko. The bird flew
away; he became perplexed; he wanted to hug the bird, to kiss it. Why did the bird
fly away?
trans. George J. Kanazi

A Body

by
Rifqi Badawi

This body overflows with sweat, drips the foam of desire at the crotch. A shudder
shakes the body over till it lies motionless from exhaustion, losing the elements of
existence in eternal time.
This body overflows with sweat, not to be cooled off by the breeze of the night
80

nor by the smiles of a child, nor by the impossible dream of the imagination from
which the body has never been absent nor ever escaped.
This body overflows with sweat; its foam drips from the vessel of extension, from
the swelling of the balloon of the soul. Its impossible dream tumbles to the ground,
but the body remains upright in the face of the death of one moment after the other
until the time has come for the body to die.
trans. Ayman el-Haj

APPENDIX II