E-Book Overview
This distinguished anthology presents for the first time in English travel essays by Arabic writers who have visited America in the second half of the century. The view of America which emerges from these accounts is at once fascinating and illuminating, but never monolithic. The writers hail from a variety of viewpoints, regions, and backgrounds, so their descriptions of America differently engage and revise Arab pre-conceptions of Americans and the West. The country figures as everything from the unchanging Other, the very antithesis of the Arab self, to the seductive female, to the Other who is both praiseworthy and reprehensible.
E-Book Content
America in an Arab Mirror Images of America in Arabic Travel Literature An Anthology 1895–1995
Edited by Kamal Abdel-Malek
America in an Arab Mirror
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America in an Arab Mirror Images of America in Arabic Travel Literature An Anthology 1895–1995
Edited by
Kamal Abdel-Malek
AMERICA IN AN ARAB MIRROR
Copyright © Kamal Abdel-Malek, 2000. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010. ISBN 0-312-22963-1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data America in an Arab mirror : images of America in Arabic travel literature : an anthology, 1895–1995 / translated and edited by Kamal Abdel-Malek. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–312–22963–1 (cloth) 1. United States—Description and travel. 2. Arabs—Travel—United States—History—20th century. 3. United States—Social life and customs— 20th century. 4. United States—Foreign public opinion, Arab. 5. Arab Americans—Attitudes. 6. Arab Americans—Biography. 7. Traveler’s writings, Arabic—Translations into English. I. Abdel-Malek, Kamal. E161.5.A43 2000 973.92—dc21
99–086123
Design by Letra Libre, Inc. First edition: May, 2000 10 9 8 7 6 5 4
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For A. Abdel-Malek, my dear brother and my first Ustaadh, teacher, who instilled in me the love of learning. Semper fidelis.
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Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments List of Accounts of Arab Travelers to America According to Their Date of Publication (1895–1995)
ix xi
I AMERICA IN THE EYES OF A NINETEENTH-CENTURY ARAB 1.
A Stranger in the West:The Trip of Mikhail Asad Rustum to America, 1885–1894, Mikhail Asad Rustum (1895)
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II THE MAKING OF AN IMAGE: AMERICA AS THE UNCHANGED OTHER, AMERICA AS THE SEDUCTIVE FEMALE 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
“The America I Have Seen”: In the Scale of Human Values, Sayyid Qutb (1951) A Love Tour, Mahmud Awad (1972) An American Immigrant, Ahmad Mustafa (1979) New York 80, Yusuf Idris (1980?) America:The Jeans and the Switchblade, Muhammad Hasan al-Alfi (1989) America for Sale, Mahmud Imara (1991)
9 29 31 37 43 45
III AMERICA:THE DREAM AND THE REALITY, THE AMERICAN AS AN EXAMPLE TO EMULATE 8. 9. 10. 11.
America in the Eyes of an Easterner, Or Eight Years in the United States, Philip K. Hitti (1924) The World in America, Amir Boqtor (1926) The Trip to America, Muhammad Labib al-Batanuni (1930) The Flying Sphinx [in America], Mahmud Taymur (1946?)
49 55 59 61
12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.
America Under the Microscope, Zaki Khalid (1954) My Days in America, Zaki Najib Mahmud (1955) The Land of Magic, Shafiq Jabri (1962) America: Paradise and Hellfire, Adil Hammuda (1982) The Washington Memoirs, Yusuf al-Hasan (1986) America (Top Secret), Ahmad Haridi (1987) Embers and As