الرواية البوليسية في الأدب العربي "رواية اللص والكلاب أنموذجاً"Detective Novel in Arabic Literature "The thief and the dogs" as Model

Abstract

The crime fiction, has a very long history, detectives can be found in ancient texts from around the world. The reasons behind these texts is common global desire for justice to be done. Crime Fiction in Arab world was not so popular, it fail to engage the writers and readers. Najib Mahfouz detective novel “The thief and the dogs”, published in 1962, is often held to be the first detective novel, Mahfouz provided the model for later literary investigators writer, the Novel is one of the few and simple attempts at mysteries and crime novels in the Egypt. This paper traces diachronically the emergence of this popular genre at an entirely non-canonical level, in Egypt in particular, and examines its thematic characteristics, the paper will uncover the what comes to the mind of the writer during writing “Al-Liss and Al-Kilab”. It further claims that Arabic detective literature is one of the most important literary strata in modern Arab literature, through which we can clearly discern changes in values and esthetics in modern Arab society, and examine the relations between money and ruling power in Egypt as a mirror of the entire Arab world and the connection between literature and crime. The study concluded that Najib Mahfuz was a writer who is concerned with society, religions and religious personality. The results shown that not a lot of books and academic research is found on crime fiction in Arab world. It is argued that the “detective” is an imported literary stereotype, unfamiliar to both Arab writers and readers.