Awards

• Commended for Best Translated Book Award (Fiction) 2014

Overview

Finalist for the 2016 National Translation Award given by the American Literary Translators' Association The life, birth, and early years of 'the Fariyaq'—the alter ego of the Arab intellectual Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq Leg over Leg recounts the life, from birth to middle age, of 'the Fariyaq,' alter ego of Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, a pivotal figure in the intellectual and literary history of the modern Arab world. The always edifying and often hilarious adventures of the Fariyaq, as he moves from his native Lebanon to Egypt, Malta, Tunis, England and France, provide the author with grist for wide-ranging discussions of the intellectual and social issues of his time, including the ignorance and corruption of the Lebanese religious and secular establishments, freedom of conscience, women's rights, sexual relationships between men and women, the manners and customs of Europeans and Middle Easterners, and the differences between contemporary European and Arabic literatures. Al-Shidyaq also celebrates the genius and beauty of the classical Arabic language. Akin to Sterne and Rabelais in his satirical outlook and technical inventiveness, al-Shidyaq produced in Leg Over Leg a work that is unique and unclassifiable. It was initially widely condemned for its attacks on authority, its religious skepticism, and its ""obscenity,"" and later editions were often abridged. This is the first English translation of the work and reproduces the original Arabic text, published under the author's supervision in 1855.

Full Product Details

9780814729373

Table of Contents

Reviews

Leg Over Leg doesn't just have a rhyme scheme and archaic lexicon...it also has a style that's sometimes downright eccentric. Jessica Holland, The National

"""Leg Over Leg doesn't just have a rhyme scheme and archaic lexicon...it also has a style that's sometimes downright eccentric."" Jessica Holland, The National ""Leg over Leg can often feel like nothing else in Arabic Literature, and notably ahead of its time in its deconstruction of the very idea of a narrative and the relationship between writer and reader [...] 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"

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 (Edited and Translated by) 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

Countries Available