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CMES Modern Middle East Literatures in Translation
فسحة مستهدفة بين النعاس والنوم
هذه رواية مسرحها بيروت أثناء الحرب في لبنان ، حيث لا شفقة ولا رحمة ، وحيث الإنسان كمٌّ هملُ لا يساوي ما تساويه حشرة لا ترتفع عن تراب الأرض. وما من فئة إلاّ متهّمة ! وما من أحد بريء ! وما من عقيدة وما من طائفة وما من فرد
130 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
1 person is currently reading
98 people want to read
About the author
Rashid Al-Daif
24 books129 followersRashid Al Daif (Arabic: رشيد الضعيف) (or Rasheed Al-Daif, Rachid El-Daïf, Rachid El-Daif) is a Lebanese poet and novelist. He has been translated into 14 languages. He has been referred to as "the Arab world's answer to Italo Calvino or Umberto Eco".
Rashid El Daif was born into a Christian Maronite family of eight children in Zgharta, Lebanon, in 1945.He studied in his village until high school. Then, he transferred to a government high school in Tripoli, Lebanon which only offered a philosophy degree, despite his penchant for science. After finishing high school, in 1965, he enrolled at the Lebanese University in Beirut in the Department of Arabic Letters. He became well-trained in classical Arabic literature and went to France in 1971 to continue his education.
While in France, he received Ph.D. in Modern Letters (Doctorat in Lettres Modernes) from University of Paris III, known as Sorbonne Nouvelle University Paris 3 on the theory of modern criticism applied to Unshūdat almaṭar, a collection of poems by Badr Shakir al-Sayyab, which was supervised by the distinguished Arabist André Miquel.
From 1972 to 1974, he worked as a teacher of Arabic for foreigners at University of Paris III.
In 1978, he received a Master of Advanced Studies, known in French as a Diplôme d'études approfondies, in linguistics at the University of Paris V, commonly known as “the Sorbonne” in preparation for a second doctoral thesis on diglossia in the Arab countries.
From 1974 to 2008, El Daif worked as an assistant professor at the Lebanese University in the Department of Arabic language and literature. He was a visiting professor at the University of Toulouse, France in 1999. From 2008 to 2013, he was an adjunct professor at the Lebanese American University (LAU). Since 2012, he has served a professor of Arabic creative writing at The American University of Beirut (AUB).
El Daif has received dozens of invitations to speak about his novels from all over the world including in the Netherlands, Japan, Germany, France, the United States.
El-Daif’s work has attracted numerous critical books and articles including by Samira Aghacy, Stefan G. Meyer, Ken Seigneurie, Assaad Khairallah, Paul Starkey, Mona Takieddine Amyuni, Edgar Weber and others. Several university dissertations have also been written on El Daif’s novels. El Daif has also gone on to supervise the publication of at least five novels from his students and in 2018 edited and published a collection of his student's work titled tahīya' li-dawī ḥaḍurī (Get Ready for the Rumble of my Presence).
Rashid El Daif was born into a Christian Maronite family of eight children in Zgharta, Lebanon, in 1945.He studied in his village until high school. Then, he transferred to a government high school in Tripoli, Lebanon which only offered a philosophy degree, despite his penchant for science. After finishing high school, in 1965, he enrolled at the Lebanese University in Beirut in the Department of Arabic Letters. He became well-trained in classical Arabic literature and went to France in 1971 to continue his education.
While in France, he received Ph.D. in Modern Letters (Doctorat in Lettres Modernes) from University of Paris III, known as Sorbonne Nouvelle University Paris 3 on the theory of modern criticism applied to Unshūdat almaṭar, a collection of poems by Badr Shakir al-Sayyab, which was supervised by the distinguished Arabist André Miquel.
From 1972 to 1974, he worked as a teacher of Arabic for foreigners at University of Paris III.
In 1978, he received a Master of Advanced Studies, known in French as a Diplôme d'études approfondies, in linguistics at the University of Paris V, commonly known as “the Sorbonne” in preparation for a second doctoral thesis on diglossia in the Arab countries.
From 1974 to 2008, El Daif worked as an assistant professor at the Lebanese University in the Department of Arabic language and literature. He was a visiting professor at the University of Toulouse, France in 1999. From 2008 to 2013, he was an adjunct professor at the Lebanese American University (LAU). Since 2012, he has served a professor of Arabic creative writing at The American University of Beirut (AUB).
El Daif has received dozens of invitations to speak about his novels from all over the world including in the Netherlands, Japan, Germany, France, the United States.
El-Daif’s work has attracted numerous critical books and articles including by Samira Aghacy, Stefan G. Meyer, Ken Seigneurie, Assaad Khairallah, Paul Starkey, Mona Takieddine Amyuni, Edgar Weber and others. Several university dissertations have also been written on El Daif’s novels. El Daif has also gone on to supervise the publication of at least five novels from his students and in 2018 edited and published a collection of his student's work titled tahīya' li-dawī ḥaḍurī (Get Ready for the Rumble of my Presence).
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 28, 2025
This book was for a Middle Eastern class, but I surprisingly liked it. The narration is so confusing, yet captivating. It really dives into the psyche of trauma from war and displacement, and questioning the truth of reality. I was trying to find closure by the end, but received none which makes sense with the narrative of the novel.
April 21, 2025
Very difficult to get into and stay attached to, but very poetic and moving. Soothing and horrifying at the same time in addressing the horrors of the war, especially reading this in the context of world affairs and my country seeming to crumble into similar “bottomless evil.”
October 10, 2014
رواية مكتوبة بين سكرة الواعي وغفوة الحالم.. يختلط فيها الوعي والاوعي ، بين الهذيان والحكمة... تأتي هذه الرواية لتناقش اوضاع لبنان التي لا افقه فيها شيئا، ولا افهم كثيرا من رموز ودلالات كاتبها... كانت الرؤية ضبابية اثناء تجولي في الرواية، استمريت بها لعلها تتضح في النهاية...لكنها اصبحت مظلمة أكثر...
February 2, 2026
3.5 if I could. Surreal and unsettling, but powerful in its confusion. I randomly grabbed this at the library and I'm glad that I did.
June 21, 2016
Rashid al-Daif was born in 1945 in Zhgarta, a region in northern Lebanon populated largely by Maronite Christians. Like many leftist, secular Christians, he spent the civil war in West Beirut, an area known as the "targeted zone" between political and religious loyalties. The experience left him disillusioned with Marxist analytical thought, which felt dry and hollow in the face of history's onslaught. I needed "confession, screaming, and holding pain up in the face of recklessness," he recalled, and subsequently "went back to literature." For only the language of literature, al-Daif found, is as volatile as reality itself. (From the introduction by translator Nirvana Tanoukhi.)
First published in 1986, the original Arabic title of Passage to Dusk is Fus'hah mustahdafah bayna al-nu'as walnawn, which transliterates into "a targeted, or intentional, zone or space, in between drowsiness and sleep." True to its al-Daif's creative philosophy, the story is unstable and constantly shifting. The narrator has returned home after a shell blew his arm off and landed him in the hospital. The building superintendent tells him that his cousin arrived several days ago with his pregnant, widowed sister-in-law and her young son, and that he has lodged them in the narrator's empty apartment. They're still there and he hopes he doesn't mind. But anything beyond that is a waking dream. The narrator spends most of the time in bed, where the feverish heat merges with his PTSD visions in a fugue of unending violence and sexual energy. His voice is muted but his words describe a world dominated by the forces of passion - for faith, party, people - that sweep everyone and everything along in all their tragic senselessness. Beirut is suspended, caught in a zone where the only thing that moves is the cycle of destruction.
At only 100 pages, Passage to Dusk is condensed to what feels like the dream of a single night. Bombs, bloodshed, falling buildings, and sectional warfare have been a universal story throughout the twentieth century, but al-Daif's surrealism is an unusual interpretation. Haunting and evocative, Passage to Dusk is best read in a single sitting to drive home its visceral impact.
Original Review
First published in 1986, the original Arabic title of Passage to Dusk is Fus'hah mustahdafah bayna al-nu'as walnawn, which transliterates into "a targeted, or intentional, zone or space, in between drowsiness and sleep." True to its al-Daif's creative philosophy, the story is unstable and constantly shifting. The narrator has returned home after a shell blew his arm off and landed him in the hospital. The building superintendent tells him that his cousin arrived several days ago with his pregnant, widowed sister-in-law and her young son, and that he has lodged them in the narrator's empty apartment. They're still there and he hopes he doesn't mind. But anything beyond that is a waking dream. The narrator spends most of the time in bed, where the feverish heat merges with his PTSD visions in a fugue of unending violence and sexual energy. His voice is muted but his words describe a world dominated by the forces of passion - for faith, party, people - that sweep everyone and everything along in all their tragic senselessness. Beirut is suspended, caught in a zone where the only thing that moves is the cycle of destruction.
At only 100 pages, Passage to Dusk is condensed to what feels like the dream of a single night. Bombs, bloodshed, falling buildings, and sectional warfare have been a universal story throughout the twentieth century, but al-Daif's surrealism is an unusual interpretation. Haunting and evocative, Passage to Dusk is best read in a single sitting to drive home its visceral impact.
Original Review
August 25, 2010
A stream-of-consciousness, acid-trip of a book. Perfect to describe Beirut during its war years. This book vitrified me.
June 22, 2015
السرد المستسلم للأحلام والهلوسات والرغبات والتوقعات. لم يعد هناك مبرر لمعرفة ما يحدث بالفعل، أو هو غير ممكن، غالبا.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews