A lam al-adab al-arabi al-mu-asir: Siyar wa siyar dhatiyya. English Title Page: Contemporary Arab Writers: Biographies and Autobiographies.

• Author: Cachia, Pierre
• Position: Review

Edited by ROBERT B. CAMPBELL, S.J. 2 vols. Beiruter Texte und Studien, Orient-Institut der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesallschaft, vol. 62. Stuttgart and Beirut: FRANZ STEINER VERLAG, 1996. Pp. 1421. DM 290.

This hefty work contains basic information about 380 contemporary Arab literary figures. Each entry includes, wherever possible, a portrait of the writer, his dates, his main area of activity, an outline of his education and his career, a biographical sketch mostly by himself or by his family, and a bibliography.

The editorial policy has been prescriptive in intention, but rather loose in application. To qualify for inclusion, one must write in Arabic, not in French as many North Africans and Lebanese do, and one must have published at least one book, although this may he a collection of shorter pieces. Literature is taken in a narrow sense, the admissible genres being the novel, the short story, drama, poetry, and literary criticism. Explicitly excluded are writers on philosophy, history, religion, and politics. So, by implication, are essayists, unless they fall in the category of literary critics. And to identify contemporaries, rather than be guided simply by dates of publication, the editor has chosen the oddly arbitrary criteria that one must he born within the twentieth century and live beyond 1970. The rule is promptly honored in the breach: exceptions have been made, we are told, for such as Badr Shakir as-Sayyab because, although he died in 1964, "his literary output spread during the post World War II period." No similar explanation is offered for the inclusion of, say, Muhammad Farid Abu Hadid (1893-1968), who published only one book after 1954; and no equal indulgence is shown toward such a giant as Abbas Mahmud al- Aqqad, who like as-Sayyab had the misfortune of dying in 1964.

In fact, all we are told about the process of selection is that an initial list of over six hundred names was whittled down after extensive consultations and after some of the nominees had "excluded themselves." Who compiled the list and who was consulted is not specified, but with the plea that in such matters no unanimity is to be expected one can only sorrowfully agree, and turn instead to the positive service this work has to offer.

It is indeed handsomely produced in a clear script, with only a sprinkling of typographical errors (as when London instead of Leiden is given as the place where the Journal of Arabic Literature is published [p. 29])...