Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories

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Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories

â€œMore 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.â€ So states the translatorâ€™s foreword to this collection of the Egyptian authorâ€™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. Badriyyaâ€™s despairing anger at her deceitful husband, for example, or the haunting melancholy of â€œAt the Time of the Jasmine,â€ are treated with a sensitivity to the discipline and order of Islam.

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