yemenat
Yemenat
By Khaled Al-Yousef
Translated by Mohammed Al-Mekhlafi
When I wrote my story The Illusion of Rain in late 1397 AH/1977, it was published the following year, in 1398 AH/1978, in a school periodical and later in several literary publications and spaces. I never imagined that it would lead to the stories that followed, or that it would be the beginning of such a long journey, one that would branch out into many other paths.
Perhaps I have written more than one hundred and fifty short stories over these five decades.
Alongside writing short stories, I was also on another journey: trying to give the short story a stronger place and helping it grow, remain active, and continue to develop.
This interest began when I was working as an editor at the school magazine Alam al-Kutub (The World of Books) toward the end of 1400 AH/1980. I was asked, along with others, to help prepare a special issue about the short story in Saudi Arabia. It was an early stage in my own journey, and my interest continued through the magazine’s later issues.
Later, my teacher, Hamad Al-Qadhi, asked me to work with him at Al-Majalla Al-Arabiyah, conducting interviews and conversations with a number of Saudi women writers. I had already done similar work through the literary and cultural pages of Al-Riyadh newspaper. These experiences brought me closer to the pioneers of the Saudi short story and novel, and I came to know them all.
My involvement continued through our daily newspapers and their weekly literary supplements. Later, when I became responsible for the literary supplement and pages at Al-Masa’iya newspaper, I tried to give the short story the place it deserved. Then, in 1407 AH/1987, I was appointed by the Saudi Arabian Society for Culture and Arts to be responsible for the Saudi Short Story Club, with the title of Secretary of the Saudi Short Story Club.
At the Saudi Short Story Club, I started working collectively, although I was doing much of the work on my own. I began building databases on the Saudi short story and its writers. Even though my position was limited, I set out to build wide-ranging relationships with Saudi short story writers, Arab short story writers, and similar clubs, including the Short Story Club in Cairo and the Short Story Club in Tunis.
I then began putting together collections of Saudi short stories for publication in Saudi Arabia through the club’s new periodical. The idea came from changing the title Arms of the Sunlit Oases to The Sunlit Oases. Outside Saudi Arabia, I received approval from most of the writers I contacted, and some of these contacts later turned into friendships.
I thank Allah that I achieved a great deal at the Saudi Short Story Club. This included its annual competitions, literary evenings, weekly meetings, printing and publishing, and the many relationships I built inside and outside Saudi Arabia.
The result was more than thirty short story collections and novels, nine issues of Al-Wahat Al-Shamsiyah (The Sunlit Oases), dozens of literary evenings, seminars, and meetings, as well as an information center for Saudi short story writers. This continued until 1422 AH/2002, the year I left the Saudi Short Story Club.
As for my research and books, at the end of 1410 AH/1990, I published my first specialized bibliography on the short story, Al-Rasid. Thirty-seven years later, it has become a historical, literary, and cultural reference for the Saudi short story.
After that, I prepared many special features on the short story that were published in our newspapers and periodicals. I also prepared bibliographies about short story writers and their works, as well as about Saudi and Gulf short story production.
In 1417 AH/1997, I met Dr. Abdulaziz Al-Sabil. He told me that he was planning to publish a periodical devoted to the short story in the Arabian Peninsula through the Jeddah Literary and Cultural Club. We talked a lot about the project and about Al-Wahat Al-Shamsiyah (The Sunlit Oases), the periodical I was editing. We also discussed how I could work with him without affecting my work on Al-Wahat Al-Shamsiyah.
In 1418 AH/1998, the first issue of Al-Rawi was published. I continued to help him whenever I could. Then, in 1424 AH/2003, after I had left the Saudi Short Story Club, I joined the editorial team of Al-Rawi. I continued working with the magazine and helping with its editing until I became its editor-in-chief in 1441 AH/2020.
I published one issue, and then the periodical stopped. It has remained suspended ever since.
With the beginning of the Internet era in Saudi Arabia in 1417 AH/1997, I started thinking about entering this new world. I had a friend who was very interested in this new technology, and we began looking for ways to understand it and find our way into it.
Eventually, I established a website called Al-Rasid, specializing in libraries, information, and Arabic narrative literature. It focused on news, articles, research, and university theses, and was one of the early specialized websites in this field.
The website was launched on April 12, 2001. It remained active and continued to develop, following literary, library, and information-related activities, until it eventually stopped because I no longer had enough time to continue working on it or maintain its technical development.
My strong desire to publish Al-Wahat Al-Shamsiyah, which produced nine issues devoted to short story texts and studies, also opened the way for me to prepare special features on the Saudi short story for a number of Arab periodicals.
Then, in 1427 AH/2006, I began working on what would become the largest anthology devoted to the Saudi short story. The book was published in 1430 AH/2009 by the Ministry of Culture and Information. It was 864 pages long and included 192 short story writers, men and women, along with biographical information about them. The book received a great deal of attention from cultural circles inside and outside Saudi Arabia.
In 1433 AH/2012, I decided to use Facebook again to create pages devoted to the short story. I gave them the name Saudi Short Story Club. I explained the name by saying that it was a platform to keep alive the memory of the Saudi Short Story Club that had once been part of our literary life, and that it was now returning through the Internet.
The platform was created to serve short story writers both inside and outside Saudi Arabia. The group kept growing, and eventually had more than 1,600 members. Perhaps half of them were short story writers and people interested in the genre, from different Arab countries. More than 3,000 short stories were eventually published on the pages, along with news about new books and other literary activities.
In 1435 AH/2014, I proposed holding a forum on the short story and very short story in Saudi literature. It was organized by the Saudi Literature Chair at King Saud University in Riyadh, where I had been a member of its scientific council since its establishment.
The forum was held over two days, with a number of successful and well-attended academic sessions. A two-volume book containing all the research papers presented at the forum was later published.
In 1437 AH/2016, I published the first volume of The Mirror of Narrative and the Echo of the Story: Arab Stories from the Saudi Short Story Club. The second volume followed in 1439 AH/2017, and the third in 1439 AH/2018. Together, they form an Arab anthology of some of the finest short stories published through the club.
In 1438 AH/2017, I published, through Al-Faisal magazine, a book titled Dahshat Al-Qass (The Wonder of Storytelling), devoted to the very short story. It brought together an anthology, a bibliography, bibliometric analysis, and historical analysis. A revised and expanded edition was published in 1442 AH/2021 by the Makkah Literary and Cultural Club.
That same year, issue 33 of Al-Rawi was published. It was an anthology of short stories written in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it included forty Arabic short stories.
Then, on 17 Rabi’ al-Awwal 1439 AH/December 5, 2017, I was honored at the Al-Baha Literary Club in recognition of my work and experience in supporting the short story in Saudi Arabia. I had also helped prepare and organize the Short Story Festival held at the club two years earlier. At that time, I was honored alongside a number of pioneers of the short story in Saudi Arabia.
I was honored again at the Al-Baha Literary Club on Monday and Tuesday, 2–3 Jumada al-Thani 1441 AH/February 27–28, 2020, in recognition of my writing and research career. Two books were published in my honor: Narratives of Khaled Al-Yousef and Khaled Al-Yousef: A Memory of the Nation’s Cultural Life. A major seminar was also held to discuss some aspects of my writing and research experience. It included Dr. Mohammed Saleh Al-Shanti, Dr. Ahmed Bahakli, may he rest in peace, Dr. Mustafa Al-Daba’a, Ahmed Al-Duwaihi, and Dr. Khuloud Al-Harthi.
In 1443 AH/2021, I proposed the Arab Narrative Forum: The Short Story in Saudi Arabia to the Northern Borders Literary and Cultural Club in Arar. The forum ran for a month and a half through Zoom because of the restrictions on gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic. More than ninety short story writers, men and women, took part, and I moderated the sessions remotely.
Then, in 1443 AH/2022, my latest book, One Hundred Short Stories from Saudi Arabia, was published. It is an anthology showcasing creativity, beauty, distinction, and some of the finest work in the Saudi short story. It was the first volume.
The second volume, Fifty Short Stories from Saudi Arabia, followed in 1444 AH/2023.
Also in 1444 AH/2022, the second volume of An Anthology of the Short Story in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was published by the Riyadh Literary Club and the Al-Baha Literary Club. The book was 680 pages long and included 140 short story writers, men and women, along with biographical information about them. It received a great deal of attention from cultural circles inside and outside Saudi Arabia.
Alongside these projects, I continued contributing to Arab and local periodicals by preparing and editing special features on the Saudi short story.
As for other languages, in the early 1990s I met Dr. Ahmed Qatriah, a professor of English literature at King Saud University in Riyadh. He was very interested in translating Saudi short stories. I helped him by providing him with selected stories, which he translated and published in Riyadh Daily and Arab News, and also broadcast on European Radio Riyadh.
Toward the end of the 1990s, he told me that he wanted to publish these translations in a separate book. They had grown to more than fifty Saudi short stories in English. We began working on the project, starting by getting the writers’ approval. I also found a publisher for him in cooperation with the Saudi Short Story Club at the Saudi Arabian Society for Culture and Arts. Then, suddenly, Dr. Qatriah disappeared after his summer vacation in 2000. I later learned that he had passed away. May he rest in peace.
After the publication of my book An Anthology of the Short Story in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2009, I met Dr. Murtada Sayyid Amurov from Uzbekistan. At the book’s launch ceremony, he announced publicly that he would select a number of stories from the book and translate them into Russian. He did so, and his book was published in 1436 AH/2016. Dr. Aleksandra Simonova also took part in the translation. The book was 255 pages long.
As for my book The Mirror of Narrative and the Echo of the Story, in its third volume, the Moroccan short story writer and author Leila Abdelaoui expressed interest in translating it into French in 2018. So far, however, the French edition has not been published.
Another book that has not reached us after its publication is Saudi Short Stories in Ukrainian. It was a cultural project between the Riyadh Literary Club and Kyiv University. I was nominated, along with my colleague Abdulrahman Al-Jasser, to prepare the book and select the stories for it. The book was printed, but it never reached us because of the war.
Translations of Saudi short stories have also appeared in a number of other languages. One of them was an Urdu edition prepared by Dr. Lubna Farah, a professor at the National University of Modern Languages in Pakistan, who selected stories from one of my books and translated them into Urdu. The book was published in 1444 AH/2023.
There have also been translations into Bosnian, Kurdish, Chinese, and Italian. Four more languages are currently in progress: Uzbek, Russian, Turkish, and English.
yemenat
مشاهدة fifty years hellip o short story
يذكر بـأن الموضوع التابع لـ fifty years o short story قد تم نشرة اليوم ( ) ومتواجد على موقع يمنات الأخباري ( اليمن ) وقد قام فريق التحرير في برس بي بالتاكد منه وربما تم التعديل علية وربما قد يكون تم نقله بالكامل اوالاقتباس منه ويمكنك قراءة ومتابعة مستجدادت هذا الخبر او الموضوع من مصدره الاساسي.
وختاما نتمنى ان نكون قد قدمنا لكم من موقع Pressbee تفاصيل ومعلومات، Fifty Years… O, Short Story!.
في الموقع ايضا :
- بث مباشر.. شاهد مباراة القادسية ونيوم في الدوري السعودي
- بث مباشر.. شاهد مباراة تشيلسي وفولهام في الدوري الإنجليزي
- الأمم المتحدة تحذر من تداعيات اضطراب الشحن على أسعار الطاقة والغذاء
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