By Mursi Saad El-Din There is no denying the fact that the AUC Press has served modern Egyptian literature in English more than any other publisher. I have lost count of the English translations of novels by our writers, especially the up-and- coming ones. Of course there is the massive project of producing most if not all the works of Naguib Mahfouz in English -- a project which helped to win him the Nobel Prize. Behind this great achievement are two men: Mark Linz, the head of the AUC Press; and Denys Johnson-Davies, whom Edward Said described as "the leading Arabic-English translator of our time". With more than 25 volumes of translations from Arabic, including short stories, plays and poetry, to his name, he has brought a host of writers from the Arab world to an ever- growing English readership. I first got to know Denys back in 1947, when I was in London as Secretary of the Egyptian Institute. He joined the monthly I had started publishing, The Bulletin, intended to introduce Egypt to the English. I suggested publishing translations of short stories by Egyptian writers. At that time the leading short story writer was Mahmoud Taymour, still regarded as the pioneer of the genre. I wrote to him asking for permission to translate some of his stories. He promptly replied, sending me a signed collection of his short stories (which I still treasure) and an English book entitled Tales from Egyptian Life, translated by Denys Johnson-Davies. The first story I translated and published in our Bulletin was by Taymour, and it was followed by the work of other Egyptian writers: Taha Hussein, El-Mazini, Said Abdou, Salah Zohny and others. Eventually a volume was put together; Professor Arberry wrote the introduction. So started my interest in translation, spurred on by the work of Denys. At that time I began to follow Denys's career, though we had not yet met. Eventually, on my return to Egypt after 12 years in London, I had the good fortune of meeting him. The friendship that developed between us reflected shared values and interests -- a belief in the importance of Arabic literature on the one hand and its connection with the West on the other. This connection, forcefully expressed in his powerful translations, had roots in the renaissance that gave rise to literary activity in Egypt towards the end of the 18th century. Now, crowning his indefatigable effort in translation, Denys has produced a real masterpiece. Just out is the AUC Press anthology Modern Arabic Literature, an anthology of what the blurb calls "The Best Fiction and Short Stories from the Arab World". Eighty Arab writers are represented in this volume, with a short introduction about each of them. The reader comes across famous names like Yehia Hakki, Taha Hussein and Tewfik El-Hakim, as well as young writers like Miral Al-Tahawy and Hala El-Badry. In his introduction to the anthology, Denys delineates the history of his interest in Arabic literature, which led him to undertake the great task of producing so many translations. A point that Denys raises concerns the rise of the short story in Egypt. It was not the development of a literature that had already existed, but as a result of Egyptians coming into cultural contact with the West. From reading the literature of the West, writes Denys "it was but a step to translating them, and the next step was to produce original creative works".
