
Leg Over Leg
Volume Four
A?mad Faris al-Shidyaq(Author)
New York University Press
Published on 6. June 2014
Book
Hardback
584 pages
978-1-4798-7575-7 (ISBN)
Description
Finalist for the 2016 National Translation Award given by the American Literary Translators' Association
The life, birth, and early years of 'the Fariyaq'-the alter ego of the Arab intellectual Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq
Leg over Leg recounts the life, from birth to middle age, of 'the Fariyaq,' alter ego of Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, a pivotal figure in the intellectual and literary history of the modern Arab world. The always edifying and often hilarious adventures of the Fariyaq, as he moves from his native Lebanon to Egypt, Malta, Tunis, England and France, provide the author with grist for wide-ranging discussions of the intellectual and social issues of his time, including the ignorance and corruption of the Lebanese religious and secular establishments, freedom of conscience, women's rights, sexual relationships between men and women, the manners and customs of Europeans and Middle Easterners, and the differences between contemporary European and Arabic literatures. Al-Shidyaq also celebrates the genius and beauty of the classical Arabic language.
Akin to Sterne and Rabelais in his satirical outlook and technical inventiveness, al-Shidyaq produced in Leg over Leg a work that is unique and unclassifiable. It was initially widely condemned for its attacks on authority, its religious skepticism, and its "obscenity," and later editions were often abridged. This is the first English translation of the work and reproduces the original Arabic text, published under the author's supervision in 1855.
The life, birth, and early years of 'the Fariyaq'-the alter ego of the Arab intellectual Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq
Leg over Leg recounts the life, from birth to middle age, of 'the Fariyaq,' alter ego of Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, a pivotal figure in the intellectual and literary history of the modern Arab world. The always edifying and often hilarious adventures of the Fariyaq, as he moves from his native Lebanon to Egypt, Malta, Tunis, England and France, provide the author with grist for wide-ranging discussions of the intellectual and social issues of his time, including the ignorance and corruption of the Lebanese religious and secular establishments, freedom of conscience, women's rights, sexual relationships between men and women, the manners and customs of Europeans and Middle Easterners, and the differences between contemporary European and Arabic literatures. Al-Shidyaq also celebrates the genius and beauty of the classical Arabic language.
Akin to Sterne and Rabelais in his satirical outlook and technical inventiveness, al-Shidyaq produced in Leg over Leg a work that is unique and unclassifiable. It was initially widely condemned for its attacks on authority, its religious skepticism, and its "obscenity," and later editions were often abridged. This is the first English translation of the work and reproduces the original Arabic text, published under the author's supervision in 1855.
Reviews / Votes
"It is not too early to state that the publication of this work, in this edition, is a game-changer. This is a foundational work of modern Arabic literature and its publication in English is long overduebut given how it is presented here, it was perhaps worth the wait. This edition, with helpful endnotes, the original Arabic text, and in a translation that both reads well and appears to closely mirror the original, seems, in almost every way, ideal I dont think Im exaggerating when I say that this is the most important literary publication of a translation into English, in terms of literary history and our understanding of it, in years." (The Complete Review) "...Leg Over Leg by the Lebanese intellectual Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, [has] long been held to be untranslatable and so [is] appearing, in [its] entirety, in English for the first time." - Lydia Wilson (Times Literary Supplement) "Humphrey Davies translation, published in four dual-language volumes, is a triumph. He skillfully renders punning, rhyming prose without breaking the spellLeg Over Legstands out for both its stylistic brazenness and the excellence of the translation. With this bilingual edition, the Library of Arabic Literature helps fill a large cultural gap and alters our view of Arabic literature and the formal trajectory of the novel outside the West. Any reader for whom the term & world literature is more than an empty platitude must read Humphrey Davies's translation." - John Yargo (Los Angeles Review of Books) "We're having a particularly good season for literary discoveries from the past, with recent publications of Volumes 1 and 2 of Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq's 'Leg Over Leg' (1855)..." - Martin Riker (New York Times Book Review) "The heroic achievement of award-winning translator Humphrey Davies marks the first ever English translation of this pivotal work An accessible, informative, and highly entertaining read." (Banipal Magazine) "Al-Shidyaq, born in Lebanon in the early years of the nineteenth century, was a Zelig of the Arabic literary world, and his Leg Over Leg is a bawdy, hilarious, epically word-obsessed, and unclassifiable book, which has never been translated into English before" (MobyLives) "Its contemporaneity is astonishing... It would be doing Leg Over Leg a massive disservice to not make it clear how funny it is. This is a book that for all its challenges, all its insight into humanity, all its place in history, had me regularly laughing out loud." (Music and Literature) "Humphrey Davies' masterful translation of Faris al-Shidyaq's Leg over Leg is the English-language reader's first introduction to the work of this foundational figure of Arabic letters. The protagonist leaves his native Lebanon to make a life for himself elsewhere as an itinerant scribe, poet, translator, editor, and author. This is a book about books, about conventions of writing, reading, bookmaking, cultural creation and crossings, bristling with puns and long digressions about the "oddities of language, including its rare words"-a preoccupation that makes Davies' translation all the more remarkable as a work of literature and scholarship both." (American Literary Translators' Association)More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Edition type
Abridged edition
Product notice
Trade binding
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 159 mm
Thickness: 43 mm
Weight
923 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4798-7575-7 (9781479875757)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
06/2014
New York University Press
€105.99
Available for download

E-Book
06/2014
New York University Press
€44.49
Available for download
Persons
A?mad Faris al-Shidyaq (Author)
A?mad Faris al-Shidyaq (1805 or 1806-1887) was a foundational figure in modern Arabic literature. Born to a prominent Maronite family in Lebanon, al-Shidyaq was a pioneering publisher, poet, essayist, lexicographer and translator. Known as ""the father of Arabic journalism,"" al-Shidyaq played a major role in reviving and modernizing the Arabic language.
Humphrey Davies (Edited and Translated by)
Humphrey Davies is an award-winning translator of some twenty-five works of modern Arabic literature, among them Alaa Al-Aswany's The Yacoubian Building, five novels by Elias Khoury, including Gate of the Sun, and A?mad Faris al-Shidyaq's Leg over Leg. He has also made a critical edition, translation, and lexicon of the Ottoman-period Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abu Shaduf Expounded by Yusuf al-Shirbini, as well as editions and translations of al-Tunisi's In Darfur and al-Sanhuri's Risible Rhymes from the same era. In addition, he has compiled with Madiha Doss an anthology in Arabic entitled Al-?ammiyyah al-mi?riyyah al-maktubah: mukhtarat min 1400 ila 2009 (Egyptian Colloquial Writing: selections from 1400 to 2009) and co-authored, with Lesley Lababidi, A Field Guide to the Street Names of Central Cairo. He read Arabic at the University of Cambridge, received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, and previous to undertaking his first translation in 2003, worked for social development and research organizations in Egypt, Tunisia, Palestine, and Sudan. He is affiliated with the American University in Cairo.
A?mad Faris al-Shidyaq (1805 or 1806-1887) was a foundational figure in modern Arabic literature. Born to a prominent Maronite family in Lebanon, al-Shidyaq was a pioneering publisher, poet, essayist, lexicographer and translator. Known as ""the father of Arabic journalism,"" al-Shidyaq played a major role in reviving and modernizing the Arabic language.
Humphrey Davies (Edited and Translated by)
Humphrey Davies is an award-winning translator of some twenty-five works of modern Arabic literature, among them Alaa Al-Aswany's The Yacoubian Building, five novels by Elias Khoury, including Gate of the Sun, and A?mad Faris al-Shidyaq's Leg over Leg. He has also made a critical edition, translation, and lexicon of the Ottoman-period Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abu Shaduf Expounded by Yusuf al-Shirbini, as well as editions and translations of al-Tunisi's In Darfur and al-Sanhuri's Risible Rhymes from the same era. In addition, he has compiled with Madiha Doss an anthology in Arabic entitled Al-?ammiyyah al-mi?riyyah al-maktubah: mukhtarat min 1400 ila 2009 (Egyptian Colloquial Writing: selections from 1400 to 2009) and co-authored, with Lesley Lababidi, A Field Guide to the Street Names of Central Cairo. He read Arabic at the University of Cambridge, received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, and previous to undertaking his first translation in 2003, worked for social development and research organizations in Egypt, Tunisia, Palestine, and Sudan. He is affiliated with the American University in Cairo.
Content
Book Four 1 Contents of the Book Chapter 1: Unleashing a Sea Chapter 2: A Farewell Chapter 3: Assorted Pleas for Mercy Chapter 4: The Rules for Retelling 62 Chapter 5: The Superiority of Women 72 Chapter 6: A Discussion 84 Chapter 7: Compare and Contrast 96 Chapter 8: A Voyage Festinate and Language Incomprehensibly and Inscrutably Intricate Chapter 9: Form and Shapes 126 Chapter 10: A Passage and an Explanation 142 Chapter 11: A Translation and Some Advice 154 Chapter 12: Philosophical Reflections 172 Chapter 13: A Maqamah to Make You Walk 190 Chapter 14: Elegy for a Son 202 Chapter 15: Mourning 218 Chapter 16: The Tyrannical Behavior of the English 230 Chapter 17: A Description of Paris 248 Chapter 18: A Complaint and Complaints Chapter 19: A Metropolitan Theft and Miscellaneous Events Chapter 20: Selection of Poems and Verses Written by the Fariyaq in Paris as Previously Alluded To 308 Conclusion Letter to "Sidi Shaykh Mu?ammad, Sayyidna Metropolitan Bu?rus," etc. List of the Synonymous and Lexically Associated Words in This Book