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Arab Existentialism: What Was It?

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Sartre and the International Impact of Existentialism

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Abstract

Welcoming Jean Paul Sartre to Egypt in late February 1967, writer Ahmad ʿAbbas Salih went straight to the point: Unlikely as it sounds, it was true. For about two decades (1950c–1970c), Arab intellectuals drew on Sartre’s ideas in order to devise a local existentialist tradition that would meet the formidable challenges of decolonization and carry them forward into a new era. Even Sartre was surprised at his fame. Indeed, with the exception of the dead Karl Marx, no other European thinker was so venerated, engaged and translated in the Arab lands as Sartre was. This warm reception cannot be reduced to Sartre’s stance on Algeria where, in the heat of battle, intellectuals were scarce and existentialism made very little sense. Rather, it is the story of the Arab East and its energetic intellectual centers: Beirut, Cairo, Baghdad and Damascus. It is also the story of a new cadre of Arab intellectuals who forged a concrete two-way relationship with Sartre and hoped that the French philosopher will fully enlist on behalf of what they began to call “the Arab cause.”

Published first as Yoav Di-Capua, Arab Existentialism: What Was It? Yale French Studies 135/36 (2019): 171–188. This chapter is based on my book No Exit: Arab Existentialism, Jean-Paul Sartre and Decolonization (Di-Capua 2018).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    On this point see the original work of Omnia El Shakry (El Shakry 2017).

  2. 2.

    Characteristically immodest, Badawi preferred to think of his work as “complementary to that of Heidegger” (Badawi 2000, pp. 179–180; see Badawi 1964, pp. 1–7).

  3. 3.

    Sandford (2003, pp. 11–22). For influence in Vietnam, see Gadkar-Wilcox (2014).

  4. 4.

    In Badawi’s words: “(the goal is to) … establish a comprehensive philosophy for our generation” (al-Badawi 1947, p. 103).

  5. 5.

    However, in a series of critical essays on Sartre’s existential philosophy, Najib Baladi accounted also for Being and Nothingness (Baladi in April 1946; see also follow-ups in June and July 1946).

  6. 6.

    Indeed, Iraqi writers who published in Beirut at about the same time confirm this diagnosis. See for instance the commentary of Iraqi literary critic Nahad al-Takarli (1953a, b, 1954) and al-ʿAzmi (1952).

  7. 7.

    Sayigh (1958, p. 59). The Arabic translation of Segan’s Aimez-vous Brahms was published by al-Adab in 1961.

  8. 8.

    See for instance: Saʿid (1961) and Habashi (1957). For an elucidating take on Shiʿr’s intellectual environment see Creswell (2012) and Giordani (2010).

  9. 9.

    For a standard literary survey see: Gordon (1990), Jad (1983, pp. 295–307), Mehrez (1994, pp. 39–57), Meyer (2001, p. 16), al-Musawi (1991, pp. 202–227).

  10. 10.

    Other important playwrights were Walid Ihlasi, Farah Bulbul and ʿAli ʿUqla ʿUrsan (Machut-Mendecka 2000, pp. 86–96; Muhammad 1982, pp. 62–165).

  11. 11.

    For other treatments of this theme see Hanoosh (2012) and Davis (2005, pp. 82–147).

  12. 12.

    Another critical text, Notebooks for an Ethics, was written during 1947–8 but was published posthumously and hence was not available.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Texas, Austin, TX, USA

    Yoav Di-Capua

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  1. Yoav Di-Capua
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Correspondence to Yoav Di-Capua .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Sartre Society, Chur, Switzerland

    Alfred Betschart

  2. University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Juliane Werner

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Di-Capua, Y. (2020). Arab Existentialism: What Was It?. In: Betschart, A., Werner, J. (eds) Sartre and the International Impact of Existentialism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38482-1_14

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