Return of the Spirit by Tawfiq al-Hakim - ISBN: 9780143133971
Paperback
A young Egyptian awakens: a nation’s soul reclaims its spirit.

$39.61

  • Paperback

    384 pages

  • Release Date

    9 July 2019

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Summary

The celebrated, revolutionary novel from a pioneering Egyptian writer Tawfiq al-Hakim, now for the first time in Penguin Classics with a foreword by Egyptian writer Alaa Al-Aswany

First published in Arabic in 1933, Egyptian playwright and novelist Tawfiq Al-Hakim’s Return of the Spirit follows a patriotic young Egyptian and his extended family as they grapple with the events leading up to the 1919 Egyptian revolution. Though often cited as an apprenticeship novel in the vein …

Book Details

ISBN-13:9780143133971
ISBN-10:0143133977
Author:Tawfiq al-Hakim, Alaa Al-Aswany, William Maynard Hutchins
Publisher:Penguin Books Ltd
Imprint:Penguin Classics
Format:Paperback
Number of Pages:384
Release Date:9 July 2019
Weight:287g
Dimensions:198mm x 130mm x 17mm
What They're Saying

Critics Review

” Return of the Spirit I believe marked the true birth of the Arabic novel…[it] was a bombshell.” –Naguib Mahfouz

Return of the Spirit I believe marked the true birth of the Arabic novel…[it] was a bombshell.”
⁠—Naguib Mahfouz

About The Author

Tawfiq al-Hakim

Tawfiq al-Hakim (1898-1987) is considered one of the most significant figures in twentieth-century Arabic literature, and Return of the Spirit one of Egypt’s most important novels. Al-Hakim is also known as the founder of modern Egyptian drama.

Alaa Al Aswany is the author of The Yacoubian Building, which was long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2006 and was the best-selling novel in the Arab world for more than five years; Chicago, named by Newsday as the best translated novel of 2006; The Automobile Club of Egypt; and the story collection Friendly Fire. He has received numerous awards internationally, including the Bashrahil Prize for the Arabic novel, the Kavafis Award from Greece, and the Premio Grinzane Cavour from Italy. He was recently named by the London Times as one of the best fifty authors to have been translated into English over the last fifty years.

William Maynard Hutchins is renowned for his translations of Tawfiq al-Hakim’s work, as well as of Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy and the novels of Fadhil al-Azzawi, Ibrahim al-Koni, Hassan Nasr, and others. He is also author of Tawfiq al-Hakim: A Reader’s Guide. He is professor of Islamic and religious studies at Appalachian State University.

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