Machine summary:
" --1 talrnost followed -the same lines as-the European Renaissance in the fifteenth century, when Europeans began to translate Greek, Roman and Arabic works into their own local languages.
Just as the eighteenth-century French and English writers sought in supernatural tales of Oriental origin a means of social satire, Arab novelists followed the same procedure.
So novel-writing found its inception in the Mcqamat or stories of mendicancy, the earliest modern example of which was Haditli 'Isa lbn Hisham, followed by Layali Satih of Hafiz Ibrahim the poet, which in the main criticised conditions prevailing in Egypt by raising questions for discussion by a group of people meeting every evening, and an un• known voice (perhaps that of the poet himself) suggesting the solution.
It is the story of an Iraqi family consist• ing of a father who is a butcher and thinks of everything in terms of the stockyard, a good-hearted mother, two sons and two daughters.
He quickly terminates it to say to them softly: ''Glad you're back safe!" This novelette is typical of the modern trend of Arabic novels and short stories today.
It is no wonder then that the Iraqi authors, who appeared later than the Egyptians and Syrians on the stage of modern Arabic literature, followed suit.
His achievements as a short story writer are well known throughout the Arab world.
" (The Echoes of Time) comprised a number of' narrative essays and pseudo-short stories,» but they were promising forerunners of what was to follow.