A l’époque tourmentée de la guerre civile libanaise, le roman Ḥağar al-ḍaḥik (1990) (La pierre du rire) de Hoda Barakat raconte l’histoire de Khalil, un jeune homme innocent et efféminé qui vit à Beyrouth et essaie en vain de s’isoler du contexte violent de la guerre, où le rapport au temps est altéré. Dans ce roman, la nourriture nous décrit la guerre en tant qu’expérience temporelle. Les aliments et les activités culinaires y interviennent pour marquer la perception altérée du temps, établir un rythme ou combler les heures vides de la journée. En d’autres termes, la nourriture contribue à redonner du sens au temps. Ce chapitre consacre une section à l’image ambivalente du café dans le contexte des personnes déplacées par la guerre. Doté d’une double fonction temporelle, liée à la fois au passé et à l’avenir, le café crée de nouveaux repères temporels en marquant la présence des absents, en révélant leurs traces et en anticipant leur futur. Au-delà du rôle fonctionnel de la nourriture, ce chapitre examine plusieurs figures littéraires inspirées des codes alimentaires et culinaires dans le texte, telles que le thème de la décomposition, ou encore celui de la nausée et du dégoût.

During the turbulent period of the Lebanese Civil War, Hoda Barakat’s novel Ḥağar al-ḍaḥik (1990) (The Stone of Laughter) tells the story of Khalil, an innocent and effeminate young man living in Beirut who unsuccessfully tries to isolate himself from the violent context of the war, where the perception of time is distorted. In this novel, food informs us about war as a temporal experience. Food items and culinary activities intervene to highlight altered perception of time, establish a rhythm, or fill the empty hours of the day. In other words, food helps restore meaning to time. The chapter dedicates a section to the ambivalent image of coffee in the context of people displaced by war. With a dual temporal function, linked to both the past and the future, coffee marks the presence of the absent, reveals their traces, and anticipates their future. This beverage thus creates new temporal landmarks. Beyond the functional role of food, this chapter examines several literary figures inspired by food and culinary codes in the narrative, such as the theme of decomposition, as well as that of nausea and disgust.

 How is food portrayed in Arabic novels? In literature, food is more than mere sustenance—it carries layered meanings. This multilingual collection brings together experts in Arabic literature to examine the complex representations of food and eating. Through themes such as dining rituals, foodstuffs, animal consumption, memory, food habits, and hunger, the content of each chapter intersects with literary criticism on food but is uniquely shaped by the Arab world’s local settings and customs. Offering perspectives that reach beyond literature, this book provides a nuanced view of Arab culture and society, inviting readers to explore the multiple significations of food.

Ibrāhīm al-Miṣrī (1900–79) was an Egyptian short-story writer, essayist, journalist, and dramaturge. His family, of Levantine origin, emigrated to Egypt before his birth. Al-Miṣrī was born in Cairo and grew up in modest circumstances. Obliged to abandon his studies and start working at an early age, he was a self-taught person who acquired wide knowledge from long hours of reading in libraries. He earned his living as a journalist until his death.

This article is dedicated to the Iraqi novel al-Mašṭūr : Sitt ṭarāʾiq ġayr šarʿiyya li-iǧtiyāzal-ḥudūd naḥwa Baġdād (2017) by Ḍiyāʾ Ǧbaylī. Through an illegal journey of twocharacters in Iraq, this book presents a new literary approach of the sectarian conflictthat tears apart the country. Intertextuality with the Italian novel The Cloven Viscount(1952), by Italo Calvino, works as a connecting thread in the story. The complex Iraqiidentity and the conflicts that are related to it are depicted as the result of both thecountry’s geographical position and its history. The first part of the article focuses onthe spatial configuration in the story and the way the concept of borders is used todefine the Iraqi identity. The latter is also the object of the second part that attempts todiscuss the close relationship that the novel suggests between the body of the martyrand the homeland.

Dans ce roman qui propose une nouvelle approche de la violence sectaire en Irak, l’humour intervient en permanence pour contrebalancer le pessimisme de la réalité. Après une présentation des traces de la littérature classique dans le roman, l’analyse se focalise sur les thèmes et les procédés rhétoriques qui provoquent le rire. Elle montre que l’humour et son fonctionnement dans le récit sont employés dans une logique comparable à celle de ǧidd et hazl dans les ouvrages classiques d’adab.

The City of the Dead is a large area on the periphery of Cairo where people live in house-like tombs. This study focuses on two Egyptian novels Sakawa 1-misri l-fasih (1981-1985) by Yusuf al-Qaid and Madad (2014) by Mahmud al-Wirwari, in which living in the cemeteries is portrayed as a paradoxical reality where life and death overlap. Limits between the two are blurred, and this creates a confusing situation where kind marks are lost and moral values are subverted. Tins situation echoes the characters' personal dilemmas and the uncertain historical context in winch they live. Tins article sheds light on the representation of life in the cemeteries and the concrete and symbolic function of tins space. It also discusses tins representation within the portrayal of peripheries and marginal spaces in contemporary Egyptian fiction, and explores the way the two novels published several decades apart use tins ambivalent: space to relate their respective historical realities.

L’article porte sur les trois romans suivants de Ǧamāl al-Ġīṭānī: al-Zaynī Barakāt (1971),Waqāʾiʿ ḥārat al-Zaʿfarānī (1976) et Ḥikāyat al-muʾassasa (1997) dans le but d’analyser la lecture que l’auteur fait du despotisme et de la révolte du peuple contre ce pouvoir. Les histoires racontées dans ces trois romans se déroulent dans des contextes différents, respectivement politique, religieux et économique. La première partie de l’article aborde les aspects formels de ces récits, à savoir leur structure et les stratégies énonciatives mises en oeuvre, ces aspects permettant de comprendre comment les différentes thématiques sont présentées. La deuxième partie analyse les portraits des despotes et leur mode d’action, la manière dont la relation entre oppresseur et opprimés est construite et les moyens utilisés par le despote pour contrôler la population. La troisième et dernière partie est, elle, consacrée à l’analyse de la représentation des opprimés, à celle de leur révolte contre le pouvoir ainsi qu’à celle des résultats auxquels cette révolte aboutit. La conclusion, enfin, précise la place occupée par al-Ġīṭānī dans la tradition romanesque égyptienne et rend compte du contexte historique dans lequel son traitement du despotisme s’inscrit.

This article focuses on the three following novels by Ǧamāl al-Ġīṭānī: al-Zaynī Barakāt (1971), Waqāʾiʿ ḥārat al-Zaʿfarānī (1976) and Ḥikāyat al-muʾassasa (1997). It aims to discuss the author’s handling of despotism and the popular revolt against it. The eventsin the three novels occur in different contexts: political, religious and economical. The first part of the article is a discussion of the formal aspects of the novels, namely theirstructure, their techniques of enunciation and other devices which show how the various themes of the novels are presented. The second part is an analysis of the portrayals of the despots and how they act, the basis on which the relation between the oppressor and the oppressed persons is built and the methods used by the despot to control the population. The third and last part is a study of the representation of the oppressed persons, their revolt against the power and the results which that revolt achieves.Finally, the conclusion of the article sheds light on the place of al-Ġīṭānī on the scene of Egyptian novel, and on the historical context in which his vision of despotism could be placed.