Yahya Hakki

Yahya Hakki (born January 7, 1905 in Sayyida Zainab, † December 9, 1992 in Cairo ), also known in the spellings Yahya Haqqi , Jachja Hakki , Yehia Hakki , was an Egyptian writer . Raised in Cairo, he went to law school and graduated in 1925. Like many other Egyptian authors, e. B. Nagib Mahfuz and Yusuf Idris , he worked as a civil servant.

As a writer he was very versatile: he wrote short stories , novels , literary reviews, essays and worked as a translator of literary texts. His most famous work is the story "The Umm Hashim's Oil Lamp".

Family and work

Hakki grew up in a middle-class Muslim family in the old town district of Sayyida Zainab in Cairo. His ancestors emigrated to Greece from Turkey and one of the sons of this family, Ibrahim Hakki (died 1890), Yahya's grandfather, moved to Egypt in the early 19th century. Ibrahim Hakki worked in Damietta for a period and had three sons: Muhammad Ibrahim (Yahya's father), Mahmoud Taher, also a well-known writer and magazine editor, and Kamel.

Yahya Hakki's parents shared a keen interest in education and literature. It is even said that the father looked for a wife who could read and write - rather unusual for the circumstances at the time. The couple Muhammad Ibrahim and Hanim Hessen had seven children: Ibrahim, Ishmael, then Yahya, followed by Zachariah, a doctor, Musa, a business economist and economist, Fatima, Hamza and Miriam. Hamza and Miriam died when they were just a few months old. Many of his relatives were academics.

Yahya Hakki studied law in Cairo. His degree was so good that he would have been able to continue his studies in Europe, only a negative health check prevented this. Therefore, Yahya Hakki first worked as a lawyer in Alexandria before he embarked on a diplomatic career in 1929 and served in Jeddah, Rome, Paris and Ankara (1951–1952). In 1953 he was appointed ambassador to Libya .

He left the diplomatic service in 1954 because he wanted to marry a French woman in his second marriage - both were mutually exclusive in Egypt at the time. In 1955 the Academy of Fine Arts was founded, where he worked as director until 1958, when the academy had to close. In the following time he became head of department in the Ministry of Culture and employee in the General Egyptian Book Organization in Cairo. In 1959 he quit there and was editor of a magazine.

He was editor-in-chief of the cultural magazine Al-Magalla from 1962 to 1970; this was a dangerous position as he was constantly faced with censorship in nasserist Egypt. His concern to promote young authors and to stand up for them did not make the work easier.

person

Yahya Hakki was considered an extremely polite, intelligent, reserved and impartial person. His small size and a stick clamped under his arm became his trademark.

Hakki worked in various groups in the course of his life: During his studies he was a member of a law group. Already he joined a circle of writers who met regularly in the Café Al-Fann (Eng .: Die Kunst).

He was often split between his Egyptian origins and his Turkish roots, although he is said to have taken the view that Egypt and Turkey would not go together. He criticized the Egyptians as defenseless people under Ottoman occupation and wanted to give them food for thought, but admitted that if you squeezed it like an orange, not a Turkish drop would come out.

In 1944 he married Nabila, the daughter of a respected lawyer and diplomat from an Egyptian-English family. But just three months later, his wife fell ill. At first she lost her eyesight, after ten months she died, despite treatment with penicillin. Yahya Hakki was hit very hard by this stroke of fate and he dedicated an article to his deceased wife with the title "Death met Nabila" in the magazine Al-Thakafa (of culture). Only ten years later did he remarry the respected artist Jeanne Marie, whom he had met in France. The relationship lasted until his death in 1992.

Writing career

His literary work includes the novel “Good Morning”, the famous short story “The Umm Hashim's Oil Lamp”, many short stories, some of which have been published in four anthologies, and journalistic works, including many literary reviews. His first short story was published in 1925. He paid central attention to this literary style throughout his life. In the short story he found the right way to express a certain philosophy of life and to defend humanity as the central virtue.

Today Hakki is considered to be the founder of the Arabic short story and the Arabic novel. Sabri Hafez describes Hakki as a pioneer of short stories and an experimental author in terms of form and style. Most literary reviews also praise Hakki's accuracy of language and his realistic descriptions.

His decision to retire from writing in the 1960s was widely viewed as a bold move. He concentrated entirely on columnist articles in which he dealt critically and pointedly with the role of literary criticism. He later began to write film reviews, drawing on his experience with European cinema during his posts in the diplomatic service.

Hakki worked as a translator on well-known works such as “The Chess Player” by Stefan Zweig and “Baltagul” by Mihail Sadoveanu. He also took part in the translation of “ Doctor Zhivago ” by Boris Pasternak .

His work: "The Umm Hashim's Oil Lamp"

The story tells the story of a young Egyptian who goes to Europe to study medicine. On his return to the village environment, he is confronted with his fiancée's eye disease. While he resorts to Western treatments, relatives try to relieve the suffering with sacred oil from a mosque. A detailed conflict arises from this as to the way in which modern, western technology is compatible with a traditional culture with Arab influences - a problem that is still highly topical today.

This story made Hakki famous because he was one of the first to take on this topic and to set new standards for Arabic literature both linguistically and stylistically.

Reviews of "The Umm Hashim's Oil Lamp"

"Hakki's story is a characteristic example of the so-called Orient-Occident novel, the Arabic counterpart to the German Bildungsroman."

- Peter Urban-Halle : Frankfurter Rundschau , October 14, 1981

"The novella deals with an essential, existential topic of contemporary Arabic literature: the turmoil between 'Orient and Occident', the uncertainty caused by the western way of life and technology"

- Literature News , No. 36, January – March 1993

"... his key narrative ... which empathetically and psychologically credible illustrates the agonizing cultural conflict between Orient and Occident using the example of a young Egyptian."

- Wiebke Walter : A short history of Arabic literature. From Islamic times to the present , Munich 2004, p. 284

Works (selection)

Fiction

• "Qindil Umm Haschim, Die Öllampe der Umm Haschim" (story), 1944 (German-Arabic edition Orient 1981, ISBN 978-3-922825-00-5 ; German edition Orient 2019, ISBN 978-3-922825- 84-5 )
• "Sah an-naum, Guten Morgen" (story), 1955 (excerpts from German in: "Farahats Republik", Der Olivenbaum 1980, ISBN 978-3-922825-12-8 )
• "Dima 'Wa Teen", Blood and Clay (short story), 1955
• "Om Al'awagiz", The Mother of the Helpless, 1955
• "Antar and Juliette", 1960
• "Al Bostagi" (The Postman), 1968
• "The turkey" (German in LISAN No. 5, Basel 2008)
• "I htigag" (protest) * "Aqrab Affandi" (Mr. Scorpion)
• "Tanawa'at Al Asbab" (means vary)
• "Qessa Fi Ard'hal" (A story in a petition)
• "Iflass Khatibah" (The Bankruptcy of a Matchmaker)
• "Al Firash Al Shaghir" (The Empty Bed)

Essays / factual texts

• “The early days of Egyptian storytelling”, 1960
• “Steps in Criticism”, 1960
• “A Song for Simplicity”, 1973

Autobiography

• “Trust in God”, 1956

Film adaptations

Four of his works have been filmed so far:

• "Al Bostagi" (The Postman)
• "Qindil Umm Haschim" (The Umm Haschim oil lamp)
• "Immraa wa Radgul" (woman and man)
• "Iflass Khatibah" (The Bankruptcy of a Matchmaker)

Awards

• 1969 Egyptian State Prize for Literature
• 1983 Honorary doctorate from Al-Minya University in Egypt
• 1990 King Faisal's international award for culture for his narrative work

Secondary literature

• Samir Wahby: A Critical Evaluation of the Writings of Yahya Haqqi. Cairo 1965 (MA Thesis American University in Cairo 1965).
• MM Badawi: The Lamp of Umm Hashim: The Egyptian Intellectual between East and West. In: Journal of Arabic Literature. Vol. 1, 1970, ISSN  0085-2376 , pp. 145–161, (again in: MM Badawi: Modern Arabic Literature and the West (= Oxford Oriental Institute Monographs 6). Ithaca Press, London 1985, ISBN 0-86372- 044-7 , pp. 83-97).
• Susan A. Gohlman: Women as Cultural Symbols in Yaḥyā Ḥaqqī's “Saint's Lamp”. In: Journal of Arabic Literature. Vol. 10, 1979, pp. 117-127.
• Katrina McLean: Poetic Themes in Yaḥyā Ḥaqqī's “Quindil Umm Haschim”. In: Journal of Arabic Literature. Vol. 11, 1980, pp. 80-87.
• Rotraud Wielandt: The image of the Europeans in modern Arabic narrative and theater literature (= Beirut texts and studies 23). Orient Institute of the German Oriental Society a. a., Beirut et al. a. 1980, ISBN 3-515-03106-5 , p. 386 ff.
• Miriam Cooke: The anatomy of an Egyptian intellectual. Yahya Haqqi. Three Continents Press, Washington DC 1984, ISBN 0-89410-395-4 .
• Muhammed Siddiq: "Deconstructing" The Saint's Lamp. In: Journal of Arabic Literature. Vol. 17, 1986, pp. 126-145.
• Tarek Heggy: Culture, Civilization and Humanity. Frank Cass, London a. a. 2003, ISBN 0-7146-5554-6 , p. 128.
• Sabry Hafez: The Modern Arabic Short Story. In: MM Badawi (Ed.): Modern Arabic Literature. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge u. a. 1992, ISBN 0-521-33197-8 , pp. 270-328, here p. 304.
• Sabry Hafez, Catherine Cobham (Eds.): A Reader of Modern Arabic Short Stories. Saqi Books, London 1988, ISBN 0-86356-191-8 , pp. 147-148.
• J. Brugman: An Introduction to the History of Modern Arabic (= Studies in Arabic Literature 10). Brill Publishers, Leiden 1984, ISBN 90-04-07172-5 , pp. 263-268.

Web links

• Literature by and about Yahya Hakki in the catalog of the German National Library
• Short biography at edition-orient

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Umm Hashim's Oil Lamp - Google Books