JEDDAH, 30 April 2007 — The Hewar Group, which regularly meets to discuss Arabic literature, is concluding its fourth season of meetings tomorrow night with well-known Saudi critic Ali Al-Shadawi delivering a final reading at the Jeddah Literary Club.
This year the group has held six sessions on a monthly basis to discuss Arabic literature under the theme of “The Presence of Saudi Society in Arabic Novels.” Most of the sessions have seen both participants and the audience furiously attacking authors and their books, which have been described as “biased” and “stereotypical.”
In tomorrow’s reading, Al-Shadawi, who is a member of the group, is to deliver a paper entitled “Characters that Reveal Local Society in Arabic Novels,” which critique four of the five already discussed novels.
The novels include Najran Below Zero by Palestinian novelist Yehya Khalaf, Hema Prairies by Jordanian novelist Ibrahim Nasrallah, The Other Town by Egyptian writer Ibrahim Abdul Majeed and The Road to Balhareth by Jordanian novelist Jamal Naji. “My paper will focus on five main points that are found in all of the four novels when describing Saudi characters,” said Al-Shadawi. Commenting on why he is only discussing four novels, Al-Shadawi said, “I have excluded Misk Al-Ghazal by Lebanese novelist Hanan Al-Sheikh because she hasn’t named a specific country.”
In her book, Al-Sheikh does not mention the country in which her story is set, but on many occasions previously she has said that she has been resident in the Kingdom for eight years.
The Hewar Group was founded four years ago by Hasan Al-Naami, a member of the Jeddah Literary Club and professor of Arabic literature at King Abdul Aziz University. Al-Naami set up the group with the aim of connecting literature to social issues raised in the Kingdom.
