This study will provide a comparative review of three novels, Zayd Mutee Dammaj's The Hostage, Jabra I. Jabra's Hunters in a Narrow Street, and Abdelrahman Munif's Cities of Salt. The study will consider what the authors are trying to accomplish, and the differences and similarities among the three books. As we shall see, there are far more similarities than differences in these novels by Arabs about Arabs in the turbulence of the Middle East. Each of the books is concerned with Arabs who are trying to find identity and freedom in the face of cultural, political, social and religious obstacles.
Dammaj seeks to portray the horrendous circumstances which existed in pre-revolutionary Yemen of the 1940s, and specifically the practice of hostage-taking which was a part of that land's culture. As such, it is a protest against and condemnation of that practice and its destructive impact on the novel's young protagonist.
Munif's novel takes a wider focus, but essentially deals with the same destructive impact of social, political, cultural, economic and political turmoil on individuals who are completely overwhelmed by circumstances and powers far greater than themselves. Specifically, Munif seeks to portray the exploitation and disruption of the small and poor village of Arabs by Americans after oil is discovered in the vicinity. The book is a cross-cultural examination of what happens when two peoples---one poor and weak and the other rich and powerful---collide.
More like Munif's novel than that by Dammaj, Jabra's book tells the story of what happens when one culture is uprooted by another. It is also like Munif's book in that the Baghdad of the story, before the Revolution of 1958, is similar to the poor community torn by the American discovery of oil and its contrast to the wealth and power of those Americans. The Baghdad of Jabra's novel is a city of stark socioeconomic and political contrasts.
Specifically, Jabra focus...