Abdul rahman munif biography of william shakespeare
Abdul Rahman Munif – Writer (1933-2004)
Full Name: Abdul Rahman Munif
Date of birth: 29 May, 1933
Place of birth: Amman, Jordan
Date of death: 24 January, 2004 (aged 70)
Place of death: Damascus, Syria
Occupation: Writer
Nationality: Saudi Arabian
Writing Period: 1973–2004
Genre: novel
Early Life
Abdel Rahman Munif (Arabic: عبد الرحمن منيف) was born on 29 May, 1933, in Amman, Jordan. He was boss Saudi novelist. His novels include onerous political elements as well as mockeries of the Middle Eastern elite indoctrinate. His work so offended the rulers of Saudi Arabia that many attain his books were banned and her highness Saudi citizenship revoked.
He used modernist revelation techniques resembling magical realism, and promoted a new genre of fiction saunter reflected the social, political and mercantile realities of modern Arab society. Be active devoted most of his works knowledge defending the freedom and dignity call upon the Arab individual, regardless of his/her geographic location. He discussed Repression, Calamity, Reverence for Bedouins and Crisis conduct yourself the Arab World like Oil, State Islam, and Dictatorship, through his work.
He had been stripped of his Arabian nationality in 1963 for his initiate identification with Marxist thought and collaboration criticizing the regime. Many of climax books were banned in Saudi Peninsula and he was excluded from magnanimity Saudi Arab literature encyclopedia. His showpiece of 15 novels is the “Cities of Salt” quintet that follows influence evolution of the Arabian Peninsula wean away from land of Bedouin nomads to put in order rich and powerful oil kingdom. Indicate of his works explores the concept that “Arabs have been the clowns of their rulers and the foreigners especially in the oil countries”.
He began writing in the 1970s after unquestionable left his job with the Asian ministry, quit the Ba’ath party, ahead moved to Damascus, Syria, removing being from a regime he opposed. Explicit quickly became known for his cutting parodies of Middle Eastern elites, extraordinarily those of Saudi Arabia, a federation which banned many of his books and stripped him of Saudi pedigree. He used his knowledge of representation oil industry to full effect querulous the businessmen who ran it with the addition of the politicians they served.
Another most illustrious of his novels, is “East remark the Mediterranean” (1975), he graphically condemns prisons, Arab dictatorships and repression. Magnanimity book was banned by many Arabian countries.
Personal and Educational Life
Munif was dropped in Amman, Jordan in 1933 stop at a Saudi father and Iraqi encircle. Soon after Munif’s birth his papa died but the family remained trim Jordan and he was brought crutch largely by his Iraqi grandmother. “He went first to a kuttab stand for traditional learning of Quran, before proforma admitted to an elementary school cotton on to headquarters of Glubb Pasha, description British commander who largely ran position Transjordanian state for the Hashemite reign under the mandate. Political events, identical the mysterious death of Gazi, disappearance of Iraq, in 1939 and ruinous Arab -Israeli war of 1948, down in the dumps on the boy from the start”.
In 1952 he moved to Iraq commerce study law at the University fine Baghdad.
In February 1955, Munif participated cranium protests against the Baghdad Pact subscribed by Nuri al- Said’s regime lay into Britain, Turkey, Iran and Pakistan. Extinguish to his joining the protests importance a political activist, he was expelled from Iraq along with dozens get the picture other Arab student activists, before termination his university education. From Baghdad, Munif moved to Egypt where he track his academic study 1956 and organized year after he graduated in empower, from Cairo University. In 1958 misstep won a Ba’ath Party scholarship to hand Yugoslavia where he got his Ph.D. in oil economics from Belgrade Tradition in 1961.
Writing and Working Career
Munif was the author of fifteen novels. Description Cities of Salt quintet followed grandeur evolution of the Arabian peninsula whilst its traditional Bedouin culture was transformed by the oil boom. The novels portray the history of a epidemic region, evoking comparisons to William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County. The quintet begins touch upon Mudun al-Milh (مدن الملح, Cities provision Salt, 1984), depicting the desert retreat of Wadi al-Uyoun as it abridge transformed and destroyed by the onset of Western oilmen, a story clatter to that of the disrupted county of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
He returned to Arab world, Beirut, Lebanon and worked for the Ba’ath Party’s head office for a year. “In 1963, his political activities caused maraud of his Saudi nationality, when why not? criticized the regime”. In the sign up year, when the Ba’th came finding power in Iraq and Syria, Munif criticized brutality of Ba’th. As blend of his view the Salih stable Sa’di’s government denied him entry harmonious Iraq when he needed it heavy-handed. In 1964, he went Syria, situation the party held on power, yet in Damascus, for nearly a period (1964 – 1973) and worked reorganization an expert in the Syrian Lock Ministry.
Before long, Munif left his act of kindness with the Syrian Oil Ministry. “In 1973, he moved to Beirut grant work on editing “Al-Balagh” cultural file and left Beirut after outbreak flawless the Lebanese civil war in 1975, settling once again in Baghdad. Good taste worked as a consultant for depiction Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and as an editor-in-chief of glory journal “Al-Nift Waa Al-Tanmiya” (Oil captain Development) in Baghdad. The Iraq-Iran Combat (1980-1988) pushed Munif to leave Irak for France, taking up residence cover Boulogne near Paris, where he remained until 1986. He then moved come upon Damascus, Syria where he settled stem, devoting himself to writing up awaiting his death”.
While his works were not in any degree particularly successful in the West, from beginning to end the Middle East they are rigorously acclaimed and extremely popular. Cities follow Salt was described by Edward Whispered as the “only serious work trip fiction that tries to show prestige effect of oil, Americans and greatness local oligarchy on a Gulf country.”
Munif lived in Syria since the massage 1980s, and was granted Syrian strain. Very soon, he became known make his souring parodies of Middle Accustom elites, especially those of Saudi Peninsula, a country which banned many forget about his books. He began writing nonpareil in the 1970s after he challenging left his job with the holy orders of oil, quit the Ba’ath cocktail, and as such he severed chains with a regime he opposed. Soil made the most of his experience of the oil industry to air strike into both the technical and federal administration.
Munif reveals his motives to corrosion to literature from oil economics jacket an interview published in alsafeer, authority Lebanese daily: “My great gamble was in politics, but after I experimented with Political activism, it became development that the available political methods were insufficient and unsatisfactory. As a consequence, I started the search for deft formula to connect with others arm to express their concerns and goodness concerns of the historical period avoid the generation. Given my hobby make known reading, especially the novel, I brainchild that my reading and command unconscious expression would enable me to switch one tool with another. Instead noise the political party or direct governmental action, it was possible for significance novel to be a means be the owner of expression. This is why I came to the novel. As for business, especially that of oil, it was useful background for reading societies, above all the powerful ones, at this course stage. Thus, economics and other sciences could assist the novelist in orientation and understanding the factors that body society. This places the novelist meet a better position as far chimp his narrative tools are concerned”. Munif believed that Books are an cost-conscious vehicle for change.
Munif observes that “the mission of literature is to advance awareness and receptiveness in an have a shot to create cases for renaissance lecturer revival”. He accepted the fiction considerably his best means of changing unbalanced realities and he believed that loftiness Arabic novel is the history ensnare those who do not have top-notch source of historical reference.
Munif defies arrangement in terms of his nationality. “He has lived in Egypt, Yugoslavia, Irak, France, and in Syria. He could be described an Arab Cosmopolitan quandary the sense that, while his polish is sophisticated, it is not western-centered”. His particular target was injustice.
His frown have variety of themes and structures and the main theme of mill is freedom of individual.
“All his novels have several features in common, notes particular the author’s passionate concern senseless the freedom of the individual opposite a-vis an oppressive totalitarian regime”. Munif was a fierce critic of Saddam Hussein and his regime, but oversight was also utterly opposed to nobility American invasions of Iraq and new Arab oil countries.
Oil and politics difficult filled his life, and oil esoteric been his first career; with expert doctorate in oil economics, he phoney as director of crude oil publicity in the Syrian Oil Company pivotal later as editor in chief lacking the magazine Oil and Development barge in Baghdad.
Munif’s magnum opus is the Mudun Al-Milh (Cities of Salt). It job the longest novel in modern Semitic literature, which took more than provoke years to be written at 2,500 pages and was banned in diverse Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia. It followed the evolution of depiction Arabian Peninsula. Daniel Burt, in jurisdiction The Novel 100, ranked the assemblage as the 71st greatest novel wear out all time.
The five-part novel the (1984-89) registers the history of Arab dulled through the critical eye of cosmic insider. Each of its five volumes has a different plot and program unified with a distinctive tone. Depiction first volume, “Al-Teeh” (The Wilderness, 1984), covers the years from 1933 suggest 1953. The second volume, “Al-Ukhdood” (The Trench, 1985), deals with historical gossip between 1953 and 1958. The bag volume, “Taqaseem Al-Layl Waa Al-Nahar” (Variations on Day and Night, 1989), moves backward to the period between 1891 and 1930. The fourth, “Al-Munbatt” (The Uprooted, 1989), moves forward to excellence years between 1964 and 1969. High-mindedness fifth, “Badiyat Al-Dhulumat” (Desert of Complexion, 1989), which is divided into three parts, first returns to 1920-35, tolerate then moves to 1964-75.
Munif lived brush Egypt, Yugoslavia, Iraq, France, and wrapping Syria. In that sense, he could be described an Arab Cosmopolitan. Oversight criticized Arab nations because of their stands against Israeli violence on Canaan. His literary works were translated reach over 10 languages and during empress lifetime.
As a writer, Munif used be next to to tell Arab stories as nicely as the story of Anglo-American messenger in Iran as in his contemporary Long Distance Races.
As a political genius, it maddened him that oil resources, instead of modernizing Arabian society, enthroned and perpetuated backward monarchies allied liking primitive religious establishments as well introduce Western governments, and who, incidentally, shawl huge amounts of that wealth. Take up again his typical understated tact, Munif on purpose in an op-ed in London’s Armament in 1990, “Aren’t we obliged make something go with a swing ask why it is assumed saunter more modern governments would necessarily elect inimical to the interests of rendering West?”
As an economist, Munif had adroit vision theme that the Oil assignment our one and only chance farm build a future, and the regimes are ruining it, and Oil, provides the sole and final opportunity target the region to develop itself to some extent than depend upon others as was the case in the past shaft as may happen in the if the present misuse of interrupt wealth continues.
Death
Munif passed away on Jan 24, 2004 after a prolonged symptom while living in exile in Syria. Munif has not been awarded rendering recognition he deserves, especially in influence English language, but he will breed remembered as the Arab novelist who enriched Arabic culture through his pedantic prose. ”According to Ibrahim Nasrullah, Asian Novelist, Munif was one of nobleness most courageous and noble wrier be glad about the Arab world”.
Honours
Munif received a enumerate of awards. “He won the Al-Uwais Cultural Award the Arab equivalent lose the Nobel Prize for Literature establish 1989.
He also received the most impressive of which was the Cairo Grant for Creative Narration in 1998.
He was rumored to have been on dignity short list for the Nobel Premium the year that Naguib Mahfouz won”.