Reem Bassiouney, born in Alexandria, is an Egyptian author who has been numerously lauded, her accolades including the King Fahd Prize for translation, the Sawiris Cultural Award, and the Sheikh Zayed Book Award. Covering a wide range of Egyptian history during the Islamic period, her novels take place in the earliest settlements of the emerging city of Cairo in the ninth century CE (Al-Qata’i); amidst the establishment of what is now known as the “old city” of Cairo (The Halva-Maker); during the medieval Mamluk period (Sons of the People); around the beginnings of women’s education in nineteenth-century Egypt (Fountain of the Drowning); and more. To illustrate her remarkable breadth, the 2025 novel Mario and Abu l-Abbas, combines the story of the Andalusian-born Sufi, Abu l-Abbas al-Mursi (from Murcia, d. 1287), with that of the twentieth-century Italian architect, Mario Rossi, centring around the mosque dedicated to Abu l-Abbas constructed in Alexandria. In her most recent work, The Diver, she ventures yet further afield, closely following the career of Al-Ghazali, one of Islam’s most renowned intellectual figures, whose career takes him from his native city of Tus in Khurasan (north-eastern Iran) to Baghdad, and then—following a psychological crisis—to Damascus and Mecca before returning to his origins in Khurasan.

Bassiouney’s novels are all characterized by their extremely accurate reflection of their historical context. In each of the works, the period in question is explored through depictions of its primary events, but aspects of its society and culture are also depicted through portraits of important individuals and—in particular and unusually—female family members and companions, who often play significant roles in the life and work of the historical figures involved.

In this interview, I speak with Roger Allen, a longtime translator of Bassiouney, about the author’s remarkable body of work.

Jonas Elbousty (JE): How did you come to translate the work of Reem Bassiouney?

Roger Allen (RA): I first met Reem while she was teaching Arabic in the United States, first at the University of Utah and then at Georgetown University. I had been asked to serve as one of the reviewers of the university’s Near East Program, and I met Reem along with the other instructors.

It was my long-time colleague and friend, Michael Beard—one of the advisers to the Syracuse University Press’s series on Middle Eastern Literature in Translation—who contacted me around 2019 and asked me if I had read Reem’s novel, Awlad an-Nas. He sent me a copy, and I was immediately attracted to it as an outstanding example of historical fiction. I contacted her about translating it, and that proved to be the beginning of a wonderful relationship between author and translator.

JE: Could you provide readers with an overview of Bassiouney’s background, including her intellectual, literary, and institutional roles?

RA: Reem has a doctoral degree in linguistics from Oxford and teaches at the American  University in Cairo. She is also a major contributor to the continuing tradition of the Arabic novel in Egypt—and particularly its focus on historical fiction, which is one that goes back to the very origins of the emergence of fiction in Egypt.

Reem’s novels focus on particular periods in the history of Egypt, Islam, and, more broadly, the Islamic world (particularly in The Diver, which centers on the life of Al-Ghazali, one of Islam’s most renowned philosopher-theologians). She is also fascinated by architecture, and many of her novels have particular monuments as a major point of background: the Hasan II Mosque in Sons of the People, for example; the Ibn Tulun mosque in Al-Qata’i; and the Italian-designed Abu l-Abbas Mosque in Alexandria in Mario wa-Abu l-Abbas.

JE: What aspects of her writing first drew your attention as a translator?

RA: I was greatly impressed by the extent to which she includes aspects of a particular period of history in her narratives—and, as noted above, I was fascinated by the way in which she provides her readers with detailed accounts of important buildings associated with the rulers of the relevant dynasty. Another significant feature that gives her novels a more personal dimension is the inclusion of strong and determined female figures in the family life of the principal characters.

JE: In comparison to other authors you have translated, what distinguishes Bassiouney’s work stylistically and thematically?

RA: Reem always conducts a good deal of research into the historical periods that are selected as the temporal locations for her work. Obviously, historical fiction is intended to provide its readers with an accurate picture of the periods and events involved, but it is equally clear that its novelists—whether it is Walter Scott, Balzac, Dumas, or Jurji Zaidan, to mention just a few—give differing emphases to the various elements that contribute to the creation of historical fiction.

As I have already noted, Reem’s novels often give attention to a particular monument that reflects the values and interests of the period’s rulers, and thus the societies that they created and fostered. Several of the novels that I have translated also intersperse sections of personal reflection—of hope and of doubt—into the recounting of events and conversations among the characters, both male and female.

JE: What strategies do you use to preserve the tone and rhythm of the original text?

RA: I’ve referred many times before to the famous statement by the German philosopher-translator, Friedrich Schleiermacher, that decisions about translation method fluctuate between a desire to “domesticate the text” and foreignize the reader.” I have always decided to take the latter as my goal, and to adhere as closely as possible to the “tone and rhythm” of the original texts that I have translated, believing strongly that exposure to the foreign, strange, unfamiliar, and even difficult is one of the primary attractions when it comes to reading translated texts—no matter its culture and language.

Reem’s novels are so well-organized and subdivided into books, chapters, and sections, and her style is so consistent that translating her novels into English certainly takes a lot of time (they are all of considerable length, given the amount of detail that she provides), but well worth the effort for the translator and, I hope, well worth reading.

JE: To what extent is Bassiouney involved in the translation process? Does she provide feedback or guidance on specific passages?

RA: Ever since I first contacted Reem about translating Awlad an-Nas as Sons of the People, we’ve been in touch with each other about every one of the novels that I’ve rendered into English, for a variety of publishers in the United States, England, and, in one case, Egypt itself (Diwan Books). She has always let me know how the work is progressing on her new novels, and has often sent me copies of the text before its publication in the original Arabic (in one instance, as I recollect, I actually finished the translation before the original text came out!).  While we obviously exchange information about the novel, its topic, and the translation, she never involves herself in any way in the translation process itself, although—of course—her own English is immaculate.

We’re now in touch with each other about her forthcoming novel, Kum an-Nur: Abbas Hilmi II.  As usual, she has done a good deal of research on the historical circumstances of the time (the roles of the British Lords Cromer and Kitchener, for example, as controllers of Egypt’s budget).  I often need to consult her regarding the names of other European figures who appear in the narrative with their names in transliterated form (e.g. Robertson and Lusange). This new translation, when complete, will be the seventh of Reem’s historical novels that I have translated.

 JE: What do you hope readers gain from encountering her work in translation?  

RA: Reem has now established herself as a major contributor to the Arabic historical novel, a tradition that dates back to the nineteenth century, and, most notably, to the series of novels that were published in Cairo by the Lebanese writer, Jurji Zaidan, who—like many of his contemporaries—left Syro-Lebanon in the wake of the civil unrest in the region and founded the famous journal, Al-Hilal, as well as the publishing house of the same name.

The aim of the historical novel is to place the contemporary reader of fiction into a particular time and place in pre-modern history and to bring to life the personalities—rulers, politicians, intriguers, etc.—who participated in the major events of the period in question.

The majority of Reem’s novels are set in particular periods of Egyptian history, both medieval and pre-modern (19th century).  One major exception to that trend is The Diver, which will be published by the American University in Beirut Press later this year (2026).  It is devoted to the life and career of Al-Ghazali—one of the most renowned figures in the development of Islamic thought—his philosophical and Sufi ideas. His life, sufferings, and travels provide a wonderful basis for a colorful piece of historical fiction.

Roger Allen has served as the Sascha Jane Patterson Harvie Professor of Social Thought and Comparative Ethics in the School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also served as Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature in the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations. He served as President of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) for the year 2009-2010. He is Honorary President of the Banipal Trust and sub-editor of the Encyclopedia of Islam, Third Edition. He is a 2020 winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Shaikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding (Qatar). Among his numerous published studies on Arabic literature are: The Arabic Novel: an historical and critical introduction (2nd edition 1995, 2nd Arabic edition 1998), and The Arabic Literary Heritage in 1998 (and in abbreviated paperback form in 2000, as Introduction to Arabic Literature; Arabic translation, Cairo, 2003). He has also translated several fictional works by modern Arab writers.

 Jonas Elbousty is an academic, writer, literary critic, and translator. He teaches in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Yale University. He is the author or co-author of ten books, including Exploring Contemporary Arabic Novels (Routledge 2026); Nasr Sami, Uprooting: Dog and Cat Pizza Chapters, Futures: An Anthology go Contemporary Arab Theater (53rd State Press, 2025); Faces (Georgetown University Press, 2024), Reading Mohamed Choukri’s Narratives (Routledge, 2024), The Screams of War (Seagull Books 2024), Tales of Tangier (Yale University Press 2023), Aswat Mu’asira: Short Stories (Georgetown University Press 2023), Media Arabic (Routledge 2021), Arabic Literary Reader (Routledge 2014), Vitality and Dynamism: Interstitial Dialogues of Language, Politics, and Religion in Morocco’s Literary Tradition (Leiden University Press 2014). His work has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, ArabLit, ArabLit Quarterly, Asheville Poetry Review, Banipal, Prospectus, Sekka, Journal of North African Studies, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Comparative Literature, Journal of New Jersey Poets, World Literature Today, The Markaz Review, and Journal of Arabic Literature, among other publications.

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