In this new release, the American University in Cairo Press, offers a brief overview of Tawfiq Al-Hakim (1898-1987), one of the Arab world’s most renowned playwrights. Yet his fame has undoubtedly been overshadowed by the Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz.
In the introduction, Johnson-Davies rightly points out that Tawfiq Al-Hakim’s success as a playwright came at a time when readers in the Arab world were turning away from traditional literary genres such as poetry and preferring novels instead. This, however, does not change the fact that Tawfiq Al-Hakim did for the Arabic theater what Naguib Mahfouz did for the Arabic novel.
The multitalented Al-Hakim wrote over 70 plays, along with novels, short stories and an autobiography, “The Prison of Life.” In this family memoir, he recounts with frankness his relationship with his father. He acknowledges that his father was a “master of fine and strange details” while he could only take things “in their broad outlines, their main significance and not their details. I am also inclined to rid myself of anything I can dispense with. I have never carried a watch. I have never tried to acquire any curio or objet d’art. I eat only what is strictly necessary. This is why drama suits me as a medium of expression, for unlike the novel which concerns itself with details, its proper scope is concepts and essences.”
In addition to four plays, Denys Johnson-Davies has also included in this book, three short stories, an extract of Al Hakim’s most famous novel “Diary of a Country Prosecutor” as well as excerpts from his autobiography.
Tawfiq Al-Hakim’s love for the theater dates from his earlier years but writing was certainly not the career his parents had in mind for him. His father was a judge and he was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps so he was sent to Paris in 1935 to study law. This trip was a turning point in his life. It gave him the opportunity to immerse himself in European art and culture. While he was in the French capital, he also discovered French dramatic art and it only sharpened his desire to write plays. He became familiar with the innovative work of well-known playwrights such as Ionesco and Samuel Beckett and was also greatly influenced by Shaw, Pirandello, Ibsen and Maeterlinck.
Theater in Egypt was regarded at that time as a popular form of entertainment. The plays, written in colloquial Arabic, were not considered serious literature, “It was Tawfiq Al-Hakim who brought about the introduction of drama into the literary canon. One of the playwright’s great contribution to modern literature was to create a form of literary Arabic that was acceptable to the educated reader but would, at the same time, allow the playwright to indulge in comic exchanges between the characters,” says Johnson-Davies.
It is interesting to note that for many years, his plays were not staged and were only available in print. After the creation of a professional theater in Egypt in the late 1940s, his plays were finally performed throughout the Arab world. Many of his plays are inspired by traditional Arabic sources. This is the case with the three plays presented in this book: “Al Sultan Al-Haier” (The Sultan’s Dilemma), “The Song of Death” and “The Donkey Market.”
“The Song of Death” deals with the problem of blood revenge which exists to this day in rural Egypt. The one-act drama was subsequently made into a film; its dark and tragic atmosphere offers a stark contrast to “The Donkey Market,” a regal comedy about a human donkey. Two jobless men decide that a donkey’s life is better than their miserable human condition: a donkey is guaranteed a roof and something to eat. So they decide that one of them will become a human donkey. They are able to persuade a delightfully naïve farmer that his donkey has been transformed into a human being. The dialogue between Hassawi, the human donkey and the farmer is hilariously funny.
After the farmer agrees not to feed Hassawi straw but broad beans sprinkled with oil and lemon juice, he asks what kind of work he is prepared to do:
“Hassawi: All work donkeys do...except being ridden.”
“Farmer: Ridden?”
“Hassawi: You can’t ride me because you’d only fall off.”
“Farmer: And carrying things? For example I was intending taking a load of radishes and leeks on the donkey to the vegetable merchant.”
“Hassawi: I’ll do that job.”
“Farmer: You’ll carry the vegetables on your shoulder?”
“Hassawi: That’s my business. I’ll manage. I may be a donkey but I’ve got a brain.”
The Essential Tawfiq Al-Hakim reminds us of the importance of this writer, the sole founder of an entire literary tradition in Arabic. Tawfiq Al-Hakim is truly, along with Naguib Mahfouz, one of the major pioneers of modern Arabic literature.
