Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories

"More convincingly than any other woman writing in Arabic today, Alifa Rifaat lifts the veil on what it means to be a woman living within a traditional Muslim society." So states the translator's foreword to this collection of the Egyptian author's best short stories. Rifaat (1930-1996) did not go to university, spoke only Arabic, and seldom traveled abroad. This virtual immunity from Western influence lends a special authenticity to her direct yet sincere accounts of death, sexual fulfillment, the lives of women in purdah, and the frustrations of everyday life in a male-dominated Islamic environment.

Translated from the Arabic by Denys Johnson-Davies, the collection admits the reader into a hidden private world, regulated by the call of the mosque, but often full of profound anguish and personal isolation. Badriyya's despairing anger at her deceitful husband, for example, or the haunting melancholy of "At the Time of the Jasmine," are treated with a sensitivity to the discipline and order of Islam.

Table of Contents

Translator's Foreword 1. Distant View of a Minaret 2. Bahiyya's Eyes 3. Telephone Call 4. Thursday Lunch 5. An Incident in the Ghobashi Household 6. Badriyya and Her Husband 7. Me and My Sister 8. Mansoura 9. The Long Night of Winter 10. My World of the Unknown 11. At the Time of the Jasmine 12. The Flat in Nakshabandi Street 13. Degrees of Death 14. The Kite 15. Just Another Day

Other titles by African writers from Waveland Press:

Ba, So Long a Letter (ISBN 9781577668060)

Beti, The Poor Christ of Bomba (ISBN 9781577664185)

Emecheta, Kehinde (ISBN 9781577664192)

Equiano, Equiano's Travels (ISBN 9781577664871)

Head, The Collector of Treasures and Other Botswana Village Tales (ISBN 9781478607601)

Head, Maru (ISBN 9781478607618)

Head, When Rain Clouds Gather (ISBN 9781478607595)

La Guma, In the Fog of the Seasons' End (ISBN 9781478600251)

Marechera, The House of Hunger (ISBN 9781478604730)

Mofolo, Chaka (ISBN 9781478607151)

Ngugi-Mugo, The Trial of Dedan Kimathi (ISBN 9781478611318)

Nwapa, Efuru (ISBN 9781478611011)

Oyono, Houseboy (ISBN 9781577669883)

Oyono, The Old Man and the Medal (ISBN 9781478609582)

p'Bitek, Song of Lawino & Song of Ocol (ISBN 9781478604723)

Plaatje, Mhudi (ISBN 9781478609575).

"Horrible, beautiful, comforting, divine and devilish at the same time." Jan Morris