Description
Book SynopsisFinalist 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 an
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...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 *
Leg over Leg will eventually be acknowledged as one of the most important translations of the twenty-first century... Humphrey Davies's virtuosic work (which he compared to climbing Mount Everest) gives English readers access at last to a quintessential novel of the era of Arabic literature's Nahda, or reawakening, and to one of the most profoundly humanist voices in literature. -- Patricia Storace * Times Literary Supplement *
Humphrey Davies's 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 *
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 *
With this impressive edition and translation, Humphrey Davies has rendered one of the most challenging texts of Arabic literature, al-Shidyaq's al-Saq 'ala l-saq, accessible to a wide range of readers for the first time... The reader is plunged into al-Shidyaq's critical, humorous, uninhibited, sometimes bitter but profoundly humane, and utterly original masterpiece. -- Hilary Kilpatrick * Journal of the American Oriental Society *
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 *
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 *
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 *
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 *
Table of Contents
Foreword ixA Note on the Text xxxiThe Dedication of This Elegantly Eloquent Book 6Author's Notice 8An Introduction by the Publisher of This Book 16Proem 20Raising a Storm 36A Bruising Fall and a Protecting Shawl 64Various Amusing Anecdotes 72Troubles and a Tambour 84A Priest and a Pursie, Dragging Pockets and Dry Grazing 92Food and Feeding Frenzies 108A Donkey that Brayed, a Journey Made, a Hope Delayed 116Bodega, Brethren, and Board 124Unseemly Conversations and Crooked Contestations 134Angering Women Who Dart Sideways Looks, and Clawslike Hooks 148That Which Is Long and Broad 162A Dish and an Itch 174A Maqamah, or, a Maqamah on "Chapter 13" 190A Sacrament 202The Priest's Tale 212The Priest's Tale Continued 222Snow 244Bad Luck 254Emotion and Motion 282The Difference between Market-men and Bag-men 312Notes 321Glossary 351Index 355About the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute 366About the Typefaces 367About the Editor-Translator 368
