Boucquey Thierry (General Editor). Encyclopedia Of World Writers. 3 volumes
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Hedda Gabler and Other Plays. Translated by Una
Ellis-Fermor. New York: Penguin, 1988.
Works about Henrik Ibsen
Clurman, Harold. Ibsen. New York: Da Capo Press,
1989.
Rose, Henry. Henrik Ibsen: Poet, Mystic, and Moralist.
New York: Haskell, 1972.
Idris, Y¯usuf (1927–1991) novelist
Y¯usuf Idris was born in a small Egyptian village in
the district of Sharqiyyah. His father was a middle-
class farmer, and Idris’s family moved frequently in
the 1930s. He was brought up in his grandmother’s
house, where he was the only child in the house-
hold. When Idris was five years old, he attended
primary school in a nearby village. He was the
youngest student in the school, and his inability to
relate to the other students or to his grandmother
led Idris to seek consolation in reading folktales
and popular stories. His interest in storytelling in-
creased when he was sent to live with his elderly
uncle, who had a rich supply of stories.
The outbreak of World War II forced Idris to
move to different schools to avoid the violence.
When the war ended, he studied medicine at Cairo
University, becoming increasingly involved in the
students’ nationalist movement, which had its cen-
ter in the department of medicine. Idris’s political
activities led to his arrest and exposed him to the
political turmoil following the war.
In the 1940s, he became friends with the
Chekhovian writer Muhammad Yusri Ahmad,
who recognized and encouraged Idris’s gift for sto-
rytelling. In 1950, Idris published his first short
story. During the next 10 years, he wrote prolifi-
cally. In his first collection of short stories, Arkhas
layali (The Cheapest Nights, 1954), Idris focuses
mainly on people from impoverished and op-
pressed backgrounds, and he examines different
character types from various occupations, social
classes, and age groups. Idris did not write with the
intention to shock readers with the oppressive cir-
cumstances of his characters’ existence but rather
to illuminate the subtle optimism and endurance
that his characters possessed. For example, in “The
Cheapest Nights,” the title story of his collection,
the main protagonist, besieged with increasing
problems that exacerbate his poverty, eventually
discovers that his only means of finding salvation
is to try and create peace from his situation.
Idris’s works resonate with vivid depictions,
bold ideas, and intelligible presentation. His cre-
ative imagination, which he developed as a child, is
artistically mixed with his sharp observation and
understanding of the human situation. Idris’s writ-
ings are celebrated because he presents familiar
characters and situations from new perspectives.
His writing style is powerful and provocative, and
his novels and short stories explode with energy.
Idris’s political views and his determination to re-
volt against injustice remained strong, and his
views often found expression in the stories he
wrote.
Other Works by Y¯usuf Idris
In the Eye of the Beholder: Tales of Egyptian Life.
Edited by Roger Allen. Minneapolis: Bibliotheca
Islamica, 1978.
Rings of Burnished Brass. Translated by Catherine
Cobham. Cairo: American University in Cairo
Press, 1992.
The Piper Dies and Other Stories. Translated by
Dalya Cohen-Mor. Potomac, Md.: Sheba Press,
1992.
Three Egyptian Short Stories. Translated by Saad al-
Gabalawy. Timonium, Md.: York Press, 1991.
Works about Y¯usuf Idris
Allen, Roger M. A., ed. Critical Perspectives on Y¯usuf
Idris. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1994.
Cobham, Catherine. “Sex and Society in Y¯usuf Idris:
‘Qa al-Madina’.” Journal of Arabic Literature 6
(1975).
Cohen-Mor, Dalya. Y¯usuf Idris: Changing Visions. Po-
tomac, Md.: Sheba Press, 1992.
Kurpershoek, P. M. The Short Stories of Y¯usuf Idris: A
Modern Egyptian Author. Leiden, Netherlands: E.
J. Brill, 1981.
218 Idris, Y¯usuf
Ihenfeld, Christa
See WOLF, CHRISTA.
Imalayen, Fatima Zohra
See DJEBAR
, ASSIA.
Indianism
Indianism, or the valorization of the native peo-
ples of the Americas, was a popular sentiment
in Latin American literature. Although Indian-
ism can be seen as far back as the 17th century in
the poetry of Diogo Garção Tinoco of Brazil and
even earlier in the writings of Bartolomé de Las
Casas, a defender of the Indians in the Americas
who wrote extensively during the early 1500s,
the movement reached its height in the 19th
century. One reason for this may be that the
newly independent countries of Latin America
were searching for a way to distinguish their lit-
erary history from that of Europe. In doing so,
many authors looked to the continent’s indige-
nous past as a source. In Brazil, Antoˆnio
Gonçalves
DIAS (1823–64) was the first great In-
dianist writer of this period. He wrote romantic
literature often with Indianist themes, such as
his first major work, First Cantos, and his later
novel Memories of Agapito Goiaba. He also wrote
a dictionary of the Tupi language, that of the na-
tive people of Brazil. Additionally, another
major Brazilian author of the period, novelist
José Martiniano de
ALENCAR wrote historical
novels with Indian main characters that cele-
brated the native peoples as the defining origin
of the Brazilian nation. Alencar’s three major In-
dianist novels are The Guarani Warrior 1857),
Iracema (1865), and The Ubirajara. Iracema is
the only work available in English; and it is a
love story of an Indian princess and a Por-
tuguese officer. Dominican author Manuel de
Jesús Galván (1834–1910) also used the histori-
cal novel as a vehicle for Indianist writing. His
novel, Enriquillo, written between 1879 and
1882, is a fine example of this genre.
Works about Indianism
Haberly, David. Three Sad Races: Racial Identity
and National Consciousness in Brazilian Litera-
ture. New York: Cambridge University Press,
1986.
Tapia, John Reyna. The Indian in the Spanish-Ameri-
can Novel. Durango, Colo.: University Press of
America, 1981.
Treece, David. Exiles, Allies, Rebels: Brazil’s Indianist
Movement, Indigenist Politics, and the Imperial Na-
tion-State. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press,
2000.
Ionesco, Eugène (1912–1994) playwright
Considered by critics as the founding father of the
French
THEATRE OF THE ABSURD, Eugène Ionesco
was born in Slatina, Romania, on November 26.
His beginnings as a writer came when he received
a grant to study in Paris, where he wrote his thesis
on “Sin and Death in French Poetry since Baude-
laire” in 1938. He remained in France, where he
began to concentrate on writing for the theater.
Ionesco was a staunch anti-Communist and a
fervent believer in human rights. His plays drama-
tize the theme of the individual’s struggle against
conformity. Although more openly humorous and
less despairing, his works are often compared to
those of Samuel
BECKETT. His best-known and
often-produced play, La Cantatrice chauve (1949;
The Bald Soprano, 1965), takes its initiative from
the empty clichés that Ionesco found while trying
to learn English from a language textbook. He used
the nonsensical sentences to illustrate the empti-
ness of a life that is stifled by the formalities of lan-
guage and custom.
Ionesco referred to his works as “antiplays” that
fuse tragedy and comedy. The Lesson (1951; trans-
lated 1958) tells of a teacher who dominates and
ultimately kills his student through his oppressive
mastery of language. The Chairs (1952; translated
1958) relates the tale of an old couple who attempt
to pass on their life experience to a gathering of in-
vited guests. With the exception of a deaf mute, the
guests never arrive. The couple, however, believ-
Ionesco, Eugène 219
ing that the audience is assembled, say their piece
and then kill themselves, reflecting the lack of at-
tention given to the playwright’s message by a non-
thinking audience.
Ionesco’s breakthrough work in the English-
speaking theater was Rhinoceros (1959; translated
1960), a play that depicts totalitarianism as a dis-
ease that ultimately turns human beings into sav-
age rhinoceroses. Ionesco’s protagonist, Bérenger,
an ordinary man who holds onto his humanity,
reappears in several of Ionesco’s other works.
Aside from writing plays, Ionesco also wrote
about the theater in his Notes and Counternotes
(1962; translated 1964). He published his memoirs
in Present Past, Past Present (1968; translated
1971), and wrote one novel, The Hermit (1973). He
was elected to the prestigious Academie française
in 1970 and died at the age of 84.
Another Work by Eugène Ionesco
A Hell of a Mess. Translated by Helen Gary Bishop.
New York: Grove, 1975.
A Work about Eugène Ionesco
Hayman, Ronald. Eugène Ionesco. New York: Ungar,
1976.
Ipellie, Alootook (1951– ) poet
Born in Nunavit in northern Canada, Alootook
Ipellie is one of the foremost Inuit writers and
artists today. He began his career as an announcer
for CBC radio, moving to Ottawa, Ontario, in
1973. Since that time, he has written poetry and es-
says, contributed to Inuit newspapers and maga-
zines such as Nunavut and Nunatsiaq News, and
edited the Inuktitut, a quarterly magazine pub-
lished by the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada that fea-
tures articles on traditional ways of life and current
issues of interest to Inuit readers and is published
in English and Inuktitut.
Published in 1993, Ipellie’s major work, Arctic
Dreams and Nightmares, is a collection of 20 short
stories that celebrate the Inuit way of life. The book
also includes Ipellie’s drawings—he is a celebrated
artist and illustrator as well as a writer—and an in-
troductory essay.
A Work by Alootook Ipellie
“The Igloos Are Calm in the Camp.” Canadian Liter-
ature Issue 167 (Winter 2000), 43.
Works about Alootook Ipellie
Kennedy, Michael P. J. “Alootook Ipellie: The Voice of
an Inuk Artist.” Studies in Canadian Literature 21,
no. 2 (1996): 155–64.
———. “Review of Arctic Dreams and Nightmares
by Alootook Ipellie.” Canadian Journal of Native
Studies 14, no. 1 (1994): 181–83.
Iqb¯al, Muhammad (1877–1938) poet,
essayist
Muhammad Iqb¯al was born in Sialkot, India (now
modern Pakistan), into a middle-class orthodox
Muslim family. Iqb¯al was an exceptional student
and won numerous scholarships that allowed him
to complete his advanced education in England
and Germany. In 1905, Iqb¯al left for England, in-
tending to become a lawyer. He quit his position
as a lecturer at Government College, Lahore, and
after three years obtained a master’s degree in
philosophy from Cambridge University and a
doctoral degree from the University of Munich. He
returned to India in 1908 and started to teach
philosophy again but quit after only two years,
saying that the government did not allow enough
freedom of expression to Muslims.
Iqb¯al began writing poetry for personal satis-
faction. His peers saw his talent and convinced him
to submit his poems to a journal for young writers
called Makhzan, which was published by a close
friend of his. The admiration of the older poets
for his poetry encouraged Iqb¯al to contribute to
every single issue.
Critical Analysis
Though never actively involved in political events,
Iqb¯al’s works are a testimony to his deep concern
for Muslims around the world. Troubled by the
220 Ipellie, Alootook
mounting tension between Indian Muslims and
Hindus in prepartition India, much of his poetry
was written based on his own desire to find a solu-
tion to end India’s religious conflicts. He often at-
tended large political gatherings in Lahore, where
people united with the common goal of leading
India to freedom from British colonial rule. Later,
prior to his death, Iqb¯al’s poetry played a pivotal
role in the years leading to Pakistan’s freedom from
Britain and India.
The influence of religion at home and his stud-
ies in Persian mysticism and philosophy, however,
are as important as religious politics in the forma-
tion of Iqb¯al’s unique poetic voice, which is at once
extremely mystical, bombastic, and patriotic. It
gracefully navigates between religious zealousness
and the sublime in nature and humanity. In Iqb¯al’s
poetry, the idea of love, or Ishq in Urdu, is deeply
connected to the principles of self and personality.
These concepts illustrate Iqb¯al’s views on the close
relationship between poetry and pan-Islamism.
Iqb¯al believed that the affirmation of an indi-
vidual’s intellect, desires, and ambitions would
lead directly to the progress of the international
Islamic community. In his opinion, the slower
progress of the East, compared to Western civiliza-
tion, resulted from blindly believing in systems of
thought that had refused to recognize the power
of the self in the individual. To remedy this, Iqb¯al’s
poetry sought to teach that the act of loving the
self would give birth to individual personality. An
individual, therefore, is not a passive follower of
fate or faith but the chief protagonist in his or her
own life.
As with all his poetry, however, the theme of
unity is essential. This reflects Iqb¯al’s involvement
with the modernist school of Islam, which sought
to create a bridge between the older traditions of
Islam and the new one being shaped under current
cultural influences. In Rumuz-i-Bekhudi (Mysteries
of Selflessness, 1914–18), the poet calls life a “wave
of consciousness,” which can “thread between the
past and now, / And the far future.” For Iqb¯al this
thread is always the message of God as prescribed
in the Qur’an.
Iqb¯al’s vision of Islam was multifaceted in that
he sought to bring science, philosophy, psychology,
and politics under one rubric. His poems embody
many different Western and non-Western philo-
sophical, political, and religious concepts. The cen-
tral point, however, is the need to believe in personal
action and its role in aiding the betterment and
progress of the world’s Muslim community. Al-
though Iqb¯al’s use of the concept of freedom evokes
the Renaissance belief in a universal humanity, he
wrote primarily for a Muslim audience.
The connection of the terms progress and the
individual can be traced to Iqb¯al’s admiration of
Western philosophies where the emphasis is on the
self, its role in the freedom of expression, and its
potential as a source of power against oppression.
In one of his Urdu poems from Bang-i-Dira (The
Sound of the Caravan Bell, 1925) he highlights the
importance of capitalizing on the gift of human
intellect. Only nature is passive and that is only
because it does not have intellect. In this collection,
the bell serves to symbolically awaken readers to
the accomplishments of Islam. Islam, therefore, is
projected as the timeless answer to personal free-
dom and religious salvation.
The element of revival was already begun in
Iqb¯al’s first prose work Asrar-i-Khudi (Secrets of the
Self, 1911–12). This Persian masterpiece was unlike
anything Iqb¯al had written before because of its
profound psychological and philosophical message.
In this work, Iqb¯al proposes that the awakening of
the soul and the self must happen before Islam it-
self can undergo any changes. Its publication bewil-
dered his contemporaries because it was radically
different from his earlier, nationalist poetry.
Though less political in its approach, Asrar-i-
Khudi does not detract from Iqb¯al’s prescription
that change and advancement will bring harmony
to the world. This theme is continued in a later
work, Rumuz-i-Bekhudi, where individual selfless-
ness is shown to be an expression of one’s social
duty. This idea is best captured in the lines “A com-
mon aim shared by the multitude / Is unity which,
when it is mature, / Forms the Community; the
many live / Only by virtue of the single bond.”
Iqb¯al, Muhammad 221
During Iqb¯al’s adulthood, Muslims were facing
religious crises across the globe. The precarious,
double-edged positioning of Muslims in India re-
inforced Iqb¯al ’s collaboration with the interna-
tional Muslim Nationalism Movement, which
worked under the slogan: “Freedom and Unity,
Pan-Arabism and Pan-Islamism.” Many critics, in
fact, have claimed that Iqb¯al’s decision (in the
1910s) to write almost exclusively in Persian was a
gesture to join with the wider Islamic community
for whom Persian was the true language of Islam.
Stylistically, GH ¯ALIB and Iqb¯al have a lot in com-
mon and are regarded as Urdu literature’s greatest
poets. Both wrote ghazals, which are metrical
poems similar to the Western sonnet. While
Gh¯alib’s ghazals are extremely metaphysical and
obscure in tone, Iqb¯al writes almost like an orator.
When he started writing in Urdu again in 1935,
Iqb¯al began to address the cause of Indian Mus-
lims with new vigor. Even the element of lyricism
is absent in his poems, and his tone more didactic
than ever before.
The fiery spirit behind his later work marked
the final stage in Iqb¯al’s contribution to bridging
the gap between the Middle Ages and the modern
in Urdu poetry. The new emphasis given to free-
dom, personal achievement, individual action, and
self-development transformed the traditional Is-
lamic belief in the negation of earthly life. Iqb¯al,
however, was not a reactionary and did not com-
pletely eschew previous Islamic ideas or the poetic
conventions of older Urdu poetry: He highlighted
existent ones and was able to show that the future
for the Islamic world could be changed because the
past supported it. As Muhammad Sadiq points,
“Iqb¯al gave [Islamic Internationalism] a new
edge....He does not think ahead of his day, there-
fore, he thinks in terms of it ...to meet the chal-
lenge of the present.” Iqb¯al’s value as a poet,
therefore, lies in his ability to use his heritage to
help his contemporary world envision its future.
In 1922, despite his open criticism of British
rule, Iqb¯al accepted the offer of knighthood by the
queen of England. The highly mystical and philo-
sophical undertones in his poetry explain why a
poet who favors one religion and expounds one
political path is still read by people of all religions
and all political beliefs. In 1930, Iqb¯al became pres-
ident of the Muslim league. He was one of the first
Muslim leaders to propose the possibility of an in-
dependent Muslim country called Pakistan. This
idea was Iqb¯al’s solution for ending religious dis-
sent in India, and it became a reality in 1947, after
his death.
Other Works by Muhammad Iqb¯al
Complaint and Answer: Iqb¯al’s Dialogue with Allah.
Translated by Khuswant Singh. Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1981.
Tulip in the Desert: A Selection of the Poetry of Mo-
hammad Iqb¯al. Translated by Mustansir Mir. Lon-
don: Hurst & Co., 2000.
A Work about Muhammad Iqb¯al
Malik, Hafeez, ed. Iqb¯al, Poet-Philosopher of Pak-
istan. New York: Columbia University Press,
1971.
Ishigaki Rin (1920– ) poet, short-story
writer
Ishigaki Rin was born in Tokyo. When she was
four, her mother died, which led to an unstable
home life. During this early period, she con-
tributed poems to girls’ magazines. After gradua-
tion from Akasaka Higher Elementary School, she
began to work at Nihon Ky¯ogy¯o Bank in 1934,
where she remained until 1975.
While working at the bank, Ishigaki began to
publish poems in union periodicals. In 1944, to-
gether with a number of other women writers, she
launched the poetry magazine Dans¯o, under the
guidance of poet Fukuda Masao. During this pe-
riod, she also tried her hand at short-story writing.
In the postwar period, she composed poetry in the
style of
REALISM, leading to her first poetry collec-
tion Watashi no Mae ni Aru Nabe to Okama to
Moeru Hi to (The pots, pans and burning fire be-
fore me) (1959). In a poem of the same name, she
wrote about cooking as an expression of love for
222 Ishigaki Rin
the people around her. Her second poetry collec-
tion, Hy¯osatsu nado (Nameplates, etc.)(1968), fo-
cused on the pain of life as one of its themes; for
example, in the poem “Cliff,” she wrote about the
women who committed suicide in Saipan at the
end of World War II by leaping from a cliff into the
sea. The collection won the H-shi Award, named
after modern poet Hirazawa Teijir¯o. She has also
won the Toshiko Tamura Prize for a general collec-
tion, Ishigaki Rin Shish¯u (Ishigaki Rin’s poetry
anthology) (1971), and the Globe Award for the
poetry collection Ryakureki (An abbreviated
history) (1979). Other publications include Y¯umoa
no Sakoku (The national isolation of humor)
(1973), a collection of essays and early short sto-
ries, and the poetry collection Yasashii Kotoba
(Sweet words) (1984).
Ishigaki’s poetry is renowned for its frankness
and sympathy for humankind while exercising
humorous social criticism. She is also unique in
her frank portrayal of Japan’s defeat in World
War II.
Another Work by Ishigaki Rin
Anthology of Modern Japanese Poets. Edited and trans-
lated by Alexander Besher, Hiroaki Sato, and Yoi-
chi Midorikawa. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Ishigaki Rin 223
224
Jaccottet, Philippe (1925– ) poet,
novelist
Philippe Jaccottet was born in Moudon, Swit-
zerland, was educated in Lausanne, and devel-
oped an early enthusiasm for poetry, beginning
his career by publishing French translations of
Homer, Góngora, HÖLDERLIN, LEOPARDI, and UN-
GARETTI.
Jaccottet met his literary mentor, Gustave
Round, in 1941 and, after a trip to Italy where he
met Ungaretti, settled in Paris. He made friend-
ships in the literary community with such writers
as Francis
PONGE, Yves BONNEFOY, André du
Bouchet (1924– ) and Jacques Dupin (1927– ).
Their influence caused him to be wary of EXISTEN-
TIALISM and surrealism, and he took refuge in his
own works in the more coherent and traditional
style of
CLASSICISM.
Jaccottet’s first published poetry collection was
Requiem (1947), but his first significant collection
was Frightens and Other Poetries (1953), whose
poems deal with the passage of time, the anguish
of death, and the loss of love. His first prose work,
A Walk Under the Trees (1957), established his fas-
cination with landscapes.
Several other prose works followed these early
successes. The Ignoramus (1958) and Elements of a
Dream (1961) explore the tenuous nature of
human existence. With Airs (1967), he returned to
poetry, focusing on lighter themes. A passage from
his latest work, Cahier de verdure (Notebook of
Green, 1990), gives a sense of the intensity with
which he endows encounters with the natural
world:
This time it was a cherry tree. Not a cherry tree
in full bloom, referring to some kind of clear
approach, but a cherry tree loaded with fruits,
caught sight of one evening in June, on the
other side of a huge cornfield. It was once more
as if someone had appeared there and were
talking to you without really talking to you,
without even pointing at you: someone or,
rather, somebody, and a “beautiful thing” in-
deed . . .
Jaccottet has also written several works of criti-
cism, as well as poetry and prose dealing with sig-
nificant events in his life. He continues to write
and work as a translator.
J
Other Works by Philippe Jaccottet
Selected Poems. Translated by Derek Mahon. Winston-
Salem, N.C.: Wake Forest University Press, 1988.
Under Clouded Skies; and, Beauregard. Translated by
David Constantine and Mark Treharne. Newcastle
upon Tyne: Bloodaxe Books, 1994.
A Work about Philippe Jaccottet
Cady, Andrea. Measuring the Visible: The Verse and
Prose of Philippe Jaccottet. Atlanta, Ga.: Rodopi,
1992.
Jarry, Alfred (1873–1907) playwright, poet,
novelist
Best known for his play Ubu roi (King Ubu, 1896),
Alfred Jarry was an eccentric whose fantastic works
are considered to be forerunners of the THEATRE OF
THE ABSURD. Born in Lavalle, Mayenne, he inherited
much of his eccentricity and a trace of insanity
from his mother. By age 15, he had already collab-
orated with several classmates to write Ubu roi as
a means of ridiculing a disliked mathematics pro-
fessor. Originally performed with marionettes, the
play was later produced in Paris where its anarchist
themes and coarse language incited a riot.
Jarry created his own absurdist logic, which he
called Pataphysics, a science governing the laws of
exceptions and reaching beyond metaphysics to
encompass that which cannot be defined. He at-
tributed his logic to a science-fiction type charac-
ter known as Dr. Faustoll. He even invented a
Pataphysical calendar, which begins on September
8, 1873, Jarry’s birthdate.
Inspired by H. G. Wells’s novel The Time Ma-
chine, Jarry turned to science fiction and wrote the
essay “How to Build a Time Machine” (1900). His
final novel, Le Surmâle (The Supermale, 1902), was
a comic fantasy of a superman who ate superfood
and performed feats of erotic endurance before
dying in the embrace of a machine.
Jarry’s life eventually began to mirror his art.
From Père Ubu, his protagonist in Ubu roi, he
picked up eccentric and destructive habits. Refer-
ring to himself frequently in the third person, he
drank excessively, hallucinated frequently, and
shouted orders and obscenities at friends and ac-
quaintances.
By the time Jarry was 34, he had become a fa-
miliar figure in Paris, where he walked the streets
and carried a green umbrella, a symbol of middle-
class power in Ubu roi. He also wore cycling
clothes and brandished two pistols, which he often
used to threaten fellow pedestrians.
Jarry’s way of life ultimately took its toll. He
died on All Saint’s Day from alcoholism and tuber-
culosis, leaving behind a legacy to modern science
fiction, as well as two sequels to Ubu roi, one of
which, Ubu echaîné (Ubu Bound, 1900) was not
performed until 1937. Ubu cocu (Ubu Cuckolded,
1944) was published posthumously.
Another Work by Alfred Jarry
Adventures in Pataphysics. Translated by Paul Ed-
wards. London: Atlas, 2001.
A Work about Alfred Jarry
Lennon, Nigey. Alfred Jarry: The Man with the Axe.
Los Angeles: Panjandrum Books, 1984.
Al-Jayyusi, Salma al-Khadra (1946– )
anthologist, literary critic, poet
Salma al-Khadra Al-Jayyusi was born in East Jor-
dan to a Palestinian father and a Lebanese mother.
She spent most of her childhood in Acre and
Jerusalem. After graduating from the American
University of Beirut with a B.A. in Arabic and Eng-
lish literature, she went to London for her Ph.D.
Jayyusi has traveled widely and lived in many
places around the globe. She has taught at various
universities in the Middle East and the United
States and founded the Project of Translation from
Arabic Literature in 1980. This project stemmed
from Al-Jayyusi’s discovery that Arabic literature
was not widely known around the world, and in
cases where translations could be found, they were
poorly done.
Al-Jayyusi is best known for her literary critique
of Arabian literature and poetry. Having traveled
Al-Jayyusi, Salma al-Khadra 225
widely during her life, she is able to interpolate in
her poems the richness of her experiences within
other cultures. Despite her ability to immerse her-
self in other traditions, Al-Jayyusi is committed to
presenting the essence of Arabic literary tradition
to the literary world. Her first collection of poems,
Return from the Dreamy Fountain, was first pub-
lished in 1960. Even though it was well received by
readers, Al-Jayyusi decided to focus her next efforts
on collecting rarely known Arabic works and
bringing them to the attention of the world. In
1977, she published a two-volume critical literary
history of Arabic poetry, Trends and Movements in
Modern Arabic Poetry. She hopes that by continu-
ing to introduce books such as the above to the
world, readers can gain a better understanding of
the richness of Arabic literature.
Other Works Edited by Salma al-Khadra
Al-Jayyusi
Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1992.
The Legacy of Muslim Spain. Leiden;New York:E.J.
Brill, 1992.
Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer (1927– )
novelist, short-story writer, scriptwriter
Born in Cologne to Polish parents, Ruth Prawer
Jhabvala possesses a triple or quadruple heritage—
European (Jewish), British, Indian, and now
American; she has made her home on three conti-
nents and absorbed several cultures. She was edu-
cated in England at Hendon County School and at
the University of London’s Queen Mary College,
where she obtained an M.A. In 1951, she married
Cyrus Jhabvala, a Parsi architect, and she lived with
him in New Delhi from 1951 to 1975. (The Jhab-
valas have three daughters.) In 1975 she emigrated
to the United States, but she visits England fre-
quently and spends winters in India.
In addition to a dozen novels and a half-dozen
volumes of short stories, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala has
written many film scripts. In 1962, she met Ismail
Merchant and James Ivory; theirs has proved a
long-lasting team, responsible for such films as
Shakespeare Wallah (1965), A Room with a View
(1986), Howard’s End (1992), and The Remains of
the Day (1993). For A Room with a View, Jhabvala
won an Academy Award. Two of her own novels,
The Householder and Heat and Dust, have also
been filmed.
Critical Analysis
Jhabvala’s literary career spans 40 years and ex-
hibits several phases. Often compared with Jane
AUSTEN and E. M. FORSTER because she writes
comedies of manners, her influences include
Charles DICKENS,George ELIOT, Thomas HARDY,
Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Proust. Her early novels are
more narrowly focused than her later ones and
often center on joint or extended Indian families
and their problems. East/West conflict is another
major theme and the chief reason for comparing
her with Forster.
Esmond in India (1957) tells of a philandering
British civil servant who has an Indian wife and a
British mistress, befriends a number of middle-
class Indian women, and exhibits a love/hate rela-
tionship with the subcontinent. The Householder
(1960) focuses on the marriage of Prem and Indu;
Prem discovers he must defeat his mother-in-law
and rise above himself to fulfill his marriage. Heat
and Dust (1975), which won the
BOOKER PRIZE,is
one of this author’s most complex, sophisticated
works, interweaving two love stories 50 years
apart—that of Olivia, who runs off with an Indian
prince, and that of her granddaughter. The novel
raises the question “What is identity?” and probes
the relations between history and reality, history
and fiction, and fiction and reality. A New Domin-
ion (1971) is experimental, employing omniscient
narration (like Jhabvala’s earlier fiction) but sup-
plementing this by shifting from one character’s
viewpoint to another’s. This novel and Heat and
Dust are both reminiscent of Forster’s A Passage to
India.
Later novels are more complex in narration,
more detached, and darker in mood. They exhibit
film techniques learned from scriptwriting. The
226 Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer
first Jhabvala novel to be written in the United
States, In Search of Love and Beauty (1983), is a
quest novel exploring all three of its author’s her-
itages—German, British, and Indian—against an
American background. The later novels also han-
dle another favorite Jhabvala theme: the fraudulent
guru or swami who cheats his devotees. In Three
Continents, American female twins turn over their
lives and fortunes to sham gurus with disastrous
results.
Jhabvala’s fiction has received mixed reviews. A
craftswoman whose every word counts, she is
prized as such in the Western world; Indians, how-
ever, are often nettled by her outsider’s “inside”
view of them and the subcontinent, and they chafe
at her detachment—which is really self-defense, as
she makes clear in the introduction to Out of India.
She admits that, while immersed in India, she was
never of it. After reviewing differing oriental and
occidental evaluations of Jhabvala, Ralph Crane
observes simply, “She is a writer whose work will
stand the test of time.”
Another Work by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
East into Upper East: Plain Tales from New York and
New Delhi. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint Press,
2000.
Works about Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Crane, Ralph J. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. New York:
Twayne, 1992.
Sucher, Laurie. The Fiction of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala:
The Politics of Passion. New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1989.
Jiang Bingzhi
See DING LING.
Jiménez, Juan Ramón (1881–1958) poet
Juan Ramón Jiménez was born in southern Spain
but spent most of his life in Madrid. He devoted
his life to poetry, publishing his first volume at age
20. In about 1916, when he fell in love and mar-
ried, he stopped writing in fixed meters and
switched to free verse. He wanted to remove every-
thing but the pure poetic essence from his verse.
His constant inspiration came from his wife.
Jiménez was a member of the
GENERATION OF
1898
, a literary and cultural movement in the first
two decades of the 20th century. Each author of
the movement had his own idea of how to write
“well,” but all agreed that the improvisation, pomp,
and regionalism of earlier Spanish literature must
be replaced by a more modern, simpler literature
that seeks its inspiration abroad. Jiménez’s poetry
is an example of the move toward this simplicity.
Much of his work, such as Arias tristes (Sad Arias,
1903) and Melancolía (Melancholy, 1912), is very
sad.
Although known for his voluminous output of
poetry, Jiménez is also the author of the beautiful
story of a little donkey called Platero y yo. It was
first published in 1917 and has been translated into
English. Jiménez was awarded the Nobel Prize for
literature in 1956.
Other Works by Juan Ramón Jiménez
Florit, Eugenio, ed. Selected Writings of Juan Ramón
Jiménez. Translated by H. R. Hays. New York: Far-
rar, Straus & Giroux, 1999.
Light and Shadows: Selected Poems and Prose. Trans-
lated by James Wright and Robert Bly. Buffalo,
N.Y.: White Pine Press, 1987.
The Complete Perfectionist. Translated by Christopher
Maurer. New York: Doubleday, 1997.
Works about Juan Ramón Jiménez
Kluback, William. Encounters with Juan Ramón
Jiménez. New York: Peter Lang, 1995.
Wilcox, John. Self and Image in Juan Ramón Jiménez.
Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1987.
Johnson, Pauline (Tekahionwake)
(1861–1913) poet
Pauline Johnson was born on the Six Nations Re-
serve near Brantford, Ontario, Canada. Her
mother was a nonnative who came to Canada from
Johnson, Pauline 227