‘Heroes’ and Characters in the Novels of S:uncalla¯h Ibra¯hı¯m

Tilka l-ra¯ ’ih:a, S: uncalla¯h Ibra¯hı¯m’s short novel first published in 1966, has been widely regarded as a seminal work that heralded a major change of mood in modern Egyptian fiction. In the sequence of some six novels that have followed it, the author has developed a characteristic technique, involving the frequent use of intertextuality and the deliberate patterning of different narrative modes. The scale and complexity of the author’s works have also increased dramatically since the publication of Tilka l-ra¯ ’ih:a. This article discusses some features of this sequence of novels, in most of which the author shows a continuing preference for first-person narration and whose protagonists (with the exception of the eponymous heroine of Warda) continue to embody many of the characteristics of the ‘anti-hero’.