Overview

Full Product Details

9781479800728

Table of Contents

Reviews

Al-Shidyaq, born in Lebanon in the early years of the nineteenth century, was a Zelig of the Arabic literary world, and his Leg Over Leg is a bawdy, hilarious, epically word-obsessed, and unclassifiable book, which has never been translated into English before... -Sal Robinson,Moby Lives Its contemporaneity is astonishing... It would be doing Leg Over Leg a massive disservice to not make it clear how funny it is. This is a book that for all its challenges, all its insight into humanity, all its place in history, had me regularly laughing out loud. -Music and Literature We're having a particularly good season for literary discoveries from the past, with recent publications of Volumes 1 and 2 of Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq's 'Leg Over Leg' (1855)... -Martin Riker,New York Times Book Review Humphrey Davies's masterful translation makes accessible this unique and fascinating work, deserving of wider recognition and study [...] The translation adroitly and sympathetically captures the linguistic exuberance and literary inventiveness of the original. -Banipal Magazine Humphrey Davies' translation, published in four dual-language volumes, is a triumph. He skillfully renders punning, rhyming prose without breaking the spell... Leg Over Leg stands out for both its stylistic brazenness and the excellence of the translation. With this bilingual edition, the Library of Arabic Literature helps fill a large cultural gap and alters our view of Arabic literature and the formal trajectory of the novel outside the West. Any reader for whom the term 'world literature' is more than an empty platitude must read Humphrey Davies's translation. -John Yargo,Los Angeles Review of Books ...Leg Over Leg by the Lebanese intellectual Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, [has] long been held to be untranslatable and so [is] appearing, in [its] entirety, in English for the first time. -Lydia Wilson,Times Literary Supplement It is not too early to state that the publication of this work, in this edition, is a game-changer. This is a foundational work of modern Arabic literature and its publication in English is long overdue - but given how it is presented here, it was perhaps worth the wait. This edition, with helpful endnotes, the original Arabic text, and in a translation that both reads well and appears to closely mirror the original, seems, in almost every way, ideal... I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that this is the most important literary publication of a translation into English, in terms of literary history and our understanding of it, in years. -The Complete Review The heroic achievement of award-winning translator Humphrey Davies marks the first ever English translation of this pivotal work... An accessible, informative, and highly entertaining read. -Banipal Magazine

Humphrey Davies s masterful translation makes accessible this unique and fascinating work, deserving of wider recognition and study [ ] The translation adroitly and sympathetically captures the linguistic exuberance and literary inventiveness of the original. - Banipal Magazine

The heroic achievement of award-winning translator Humphrey Davies marks the first ever English translation of this pivotal work... An accessible, informative, and highly entertaining read. -Banipal Magazine Humphrey Davies' translation, published in four dual-language volumes, is a triumph. He skillfully renders punning, rhyming prose without breaking the spell... Leg Over Leg stands out for both its stylistic brazenness and the excellence of the translation. With this bilingual edition, the Library of Arabic Literature helps fill a large cultural gap and alters our view of Arabic literature and the formal trajectory of the novel outside the West. Any reader for whom the term `world literature' is more than an empty platitude must read Humphrey Davies's translation. -John Yargo,Los Angeles Review of Books Humphrey Davies's masterful translation makes accessible this unique and fascinating work, deserving of wider recognition and study [...] The translation adroitly and sympathetically captures the linguistic exuberance and literary inventiveness of the original. -Banipal Magazine It is not too early to state that the publication of this work, in this edition, is a game-changer. This is a foundational work of modern Arabic literature and its publication in English is long overdue - but given how it is presented here, it was perhaps worth the wait. This edition, with helpful endnotes, the original Arabic text, and in a translation that both reads well and appears to closely mirror the original, seems, in almost every way, ideal... I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that this is the most important literary publication of a translation into English, in terms of literary history and our understanding of it, in years. -The Complete Review Al-Shidyaq, born in Lebanon in the early years of the nineteenth century, was a Zelig of the Arabic literary world, and his Leg Over Leg is a bawdy, hilarious, epically word-obsessed, and unclassifiable book, which has never been translated into English before... -Sal Robinson,Moby Lives ...Leg Over Leg by the Lebanese intellectual Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, [has] long been held to be untranslatable and so [is] appearing, in [its] entirety, in English for the first time. -Lydia Wilson,Times Literary Supplement We're having a particularly good season for literary discoveries from the past, with recent publications of Volumes 1 and 2 of Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq's 'Leg Over Leg' (1855)... -Martin Riker,New York Times Book Review Its contemporaneity is astonishing... It would be doing Leg Over Leg a massive disservice to not make it clear how funny it is. This is a book that for all its challenges, all its insight into humanity, all its place in history, had me regularly laughing out loud. -Music and Literature

Al-Shidyaq, born in Lebanon in the early years of the nineteenth century, was a Zelig of the Arabic literary world, and his Leg Over Leg is a bawdy, hilarious, epically word-obsessed, and unclassifiable book, which has never been translated into English before -Sal Robinson, Moby Lives

Author Information

Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq (Author) Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq (1805 or 1806-1887) was a foundational figure in modern Arabic literature. Born to a prominent Maronite family in Lebanon, al-Shidyāq was a pioneering publisher, poet, essayist, lexicographer and translator. Known as """"the father of Arabic journalism,"""" al-Shidyāq played a major role in reviving and modernizing the Arabic language. Humphrey Davies (Translator) Humphrey Davies is an award-winning translator of some twenty-five works of modern Arabic literature, among them Alaa Al-Aswany’s The Yacoubian Building, five novels by Elias Khoury, including Gate of the Sun, and Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq’s Leg over Leg. He has also made a critical edition, translation, and lexicon of the Ottoman-period Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abū Shādūf Expounded by Yūsuf al-Shirbīnī, as well as editions and translations of al-Tūnisī’s In Darfur and al-Sanhūrī’s Risible Rhymes from the same era. In addition, he has compiled with Madiha Doss an anthology in Arabic entitled Al-ʿāmmiyyah al-miṣriyyah al-maktūbah: mukhtārāt min 1400 ilā 2009 (Egyptian Colloquial Writing: selections from 1400 to 2009) and co-authored, with Lesley Lababidi, A Field Guide to the Street Names of Central Cairo. He read Arabic at the University of Cambridge, received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, and previous to undertaking his first translation in 2003, worked for social development and research organizations in Egypt, Tunisia, Palestine, and Sudan. He is affiliated with the American University in Cairo.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available