Tenants and Cobwebs

Samir Naqqash (1938-2004) was a Jewish Iraqi novelist, short-story writer, and playwright who emigrated from Iraq at the age of thirteen. Naqqash wrote in Arabic despite living most of his life in Israel. In 2004, he received the Israeli Prime Ministerial Award for Arabic Fiction. Sadok Masliyah was assistant professor of Arabic and Hebrew at several American universities and the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. He has published studies on Arabic literature, Iraqi folklore, and spoken dialects, including his most recent book, The Formation of Quadrilateral Verbs in Iraqi Dialects.

A rare work of fiction in terms of language, history, and contemporary politics of pluralistic cultures. Written in Arabic by a speaker of Hebrew, among other languages, chronicling a period of utmost significance for the region, and demonstrating the will to coexist under harsh circumstances, the work is a valuable source of knowledge and entertainment.--Shakir Mustafa "editor of Contemporary Iraqi Fiction" As the obliteration of deeply rooted local and ancient cultures proceeds apace, the unique work of the late Iraqi novelist Samir Naqqash becomes ever more important....This first extended English translation continues the process of fully recognizing the depth and profundity of Naqqash's human vision and his stature as a major 20th c. writer.-- "Ammiel Alcalay, author of After Jews & Arabs: Remaking Levantine Culture" Naqqash writes with intense and whirling vividness about what Joyce called the 'ruin of all space' the sensory components of reality, the stable sense of the body, and all phenomenological certainties are overturned, warping the very fabric of mental and social coherence.-- "Tablet" In his translation of Tenants and Cobwebs, Masliyah does an excellent job of keeping the feeling of the original alive for his readers.-- "Sephardic Horizons"