At her Arabic Literature (in English) weblog M. Lynx Qualey reports on a recent Library of Arabic Literature workshop in Oxford where they discussed What Does it Matter if Leg Over Leg is the 'First Arabic Novel' ?
That would be Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq's Leg Over Leg, in the wonderful Library of Arabic Literature edition of Humphrey Davies' translation -- now available in paperback ! -- the first two volumes of which are under review at the complete review, here and here.
An interesting discussion -- but I too don't know that it's particularly important to consider/hail any particular book as 'first' in its category -- though, of course, literary scholars enjoy that sort of thing.
Whatever you want to consider it, it's a hell of a book -- and a hell of an historically important one, too.
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Posted on 4/27/2015
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