Paul Starkey was, until his retirement in 2012, Professor of Arabic and Head of the Arabic Department at Durham University, UK, and Co-Director of the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World. He is currently Vice-President of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies. Paul Starkey has published widely in the field of modern Arabic literature, as well as on Middle Eastern travel literature; he was co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature (1998) and author of Modern Arabic Literature (EUP, 2006). He has also translated a number of novels and short stories into English, including most recently The Book of the Sultan’s Seal by the Egyptian author Youssef Rakha.

• Series Editor's Foreword; Preface; Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction: Background and Context; 2.Rebel with a Pen; 3. Cairo Prison: Tilka al-raʾiha (1966); 4.Michelangelo and the Dam: Najmat Aghustus (1974); 5. CocaColaland: al-Lajna (1981); 6. War in Lebanon: Bayrut Bayrut (1984); 7.Consumer Society: Dhat (1994); 8. Prison of Dishonour: Sharaf (1997); 9. Widening Horizons (1): Sex, Memory and Revolution: Warda (2000); 10.Widening Horizons (2): In the Land of the Capitalists: Amrikanli (2003); 11. Return to Childhood: al-Talassus (2007); 12. The French Connection: al-ʿAmama wa-al-Qubbaʿa (2008) and al-Qanun al-Faransi (2008); 13. Filling a Gap: al-Jalid (2011); 14.Epilogue; Bibliography; Index.

This finely nuanced, clearly written and comprehensive study introduces readers to the writing of one of Egypt's most prominent, accomplished and controversial writers of fiction in the last half-century--Sonallah Ibrahim.