Tradition and Modernity in the work of the Tunisian writer al-Masʿadī

Maḥmūd al-Masʿadī ¹ (b. 1911) was first presented to the western public by M. Férid-Ghazi in an article on contemporary Tunisian literature published in 1959. ² Ten years later, G.E. von Grunebaum in his magisterial “Studien zum Kultur- und Selbstverständnis des Islam” praised him enthusiastically as an author, in whose work the problem of acculturation, meaning the fusion of Eastern and Western literary styles, tradition and modernity, was solved in an unparalleled manner. ³ And again eight years later, R.C. Ostle tackled some aspects of his work, mainly highlighting the element of parody and satire in the language of The Dam. ⁴ In 1981, S. Ballas published an article in Arabic on the existentialist dimension of the play “The Dam”. ⁵ I myself translated this play into German ⁶ and published an article about it interpreting the dam as a symbol of rebellion against fate. ⁷ Furthermore, in 1987, I gave a lecture in Warsaw, where I discussed the whole literary output of al-Masʿadi under the heading of the search for the absolute. ⁸ Meanwhile, al-Masʿadī’s work has found its way into a number of manuals on contemporary Arabic or Tunisian literature. ⁹