Leg Over Leg: Volume One (Library of Arabic Literature)
"Al-Shidyaq, born in Lebanon in the early years of the nineteenth century, was a Zelig of the Arabic literary world, and hisLeg Over Legis a bawdy, hilarious, epically word-obsessed, and unclassifiable book, which has never been translated into English before…"-Sal Robinson,MobyLives"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 overdue — but 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 don’t think I’m 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,“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,"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"...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