Saad Elkhadem
Two Avant-Garde Egyptian Novels. "The Great Egyptian Novel," "From Travels of the Egyptian Odysseus"
Bilingual Edition, Arabic / English.
Toronto, York Press, 1998. Pp. 47+ (English), 39 (Arabic). $15.95
Reviewed by Nieves Paradela

This new work by Saad Elkhadem contains two short novels, The Great Egyptian Novel (written in Arabic in 1998, and translated into English by the author in the same year), and From Travels of the Egyptian Odysseus (published in Arabic for the first time in 1979, and translated into English in 1979 by Saad El-Gabalawy; the present version, however, is a new translation made by Elkhadem himself). As with Elkhadem's other works published by York Press, this volume also includes both the Arabic and the English texts. This bilingual edition will be welcomed by teachers and students of modern Arabic literature, as well as by those who deal with translation from Arabic into other languages.

The protagonist of the first work, The Great Egyptian Novel, is a writer who searches for a topic suitable for his fictional work. All he knows about this much anticipated work, besides its title, is that it is going to be highly artistic in form and style, and that readers will love it, and critics admire it. However, he soon discovers that his naïve wish is impossible to realize, because of his insistence on using incidents he once witnessed and events he has previously experienced as the subject matter of his work, and incorporating the sociopolitical realities of his country into the fabric of his novel. Neither his life story nor his country proves to be suitable material for this ambitious endeavor; the several anecdotes he attempts to narrate are too painful, the many people whom he tries to portray are too close, and the country he wants placed in the background is too depressing. The fictitious author concludes, then, that this kind of material may be used in a chronicle, a social study, or a historical work, but never in a work of fiction. In spite of this apparent failure, the author decides to keep on searching for finer topics, better plots, and more interesting characters, until he finds the perfect ingredients needed for composing the Great Egyptian Novel.

In the second novel in this volume, From Travels of the Egyptian Odysseus, the protagonist is confined to a bed in a Philadelphia hospital, suffering from what he believes to be a brain tumor, while his doctors treat him as a neurotic, who needs sedation and uninterrupted observation. Because he thinks that his days are numbered, and so that his two young sons know the truth behind the lies their mother has been spreading, the protagonist reviews his life, and uses a tape recorder to chronicle his days. Through this autobiography-which is constantly interrupted by references to his present life-we know about his two previous marriages, his departure from Egypt in 1967 (after the Six Days War), the time he spent in Germany, Canada, and the U.S.A.; we also learn about his idealized love story with Maria, his dashed dreams, and his dreary present.

Similar to the first novel, this one also ends with the protagonist’s decision to continue with his attempts to escape, and never to give up until he finds a suitable way out of his present dilemma (“you must find a way to escape from this viciously tyrannical woman, then start a new journey in the travels of the Egyptian Odysseus”). Although they differ from one another in many ways, at certain points in their development, the reader cannot help but notice how both texts cross, touch, reflect, and mirror one another. In The Great Egyptian Novel the hero attempts to create a work of fiction, but is continuously frustrated by reality, while in From Travels of the Egyptian Odysseus the hero attempts to depict reality, but is continuously frustrated by fiction. In the second novel the hero, while lying in bed hallucinating, creates a fictional character, a narrator, whom he calls Hasan, and charges him with the task of telling his true life story. Had he succeeded in fictionalizing his life story, a suitable title would have been-you guessed it-The Great Egyptian Novel.

In this volume, Saad Elkhadem deals again with issues that are present in all his writings. Prominent among them are: the relationship between the individual and society, the desire to escape oppressive surroundings, and the complex interaction between reality and fiction. Readers who are familiar with Elkhadem's work will enjoy this volume, and will relish his mastery in the use of the internal monologue, and the intertextual play that takes place between his other writings.