A small selection from the stories of three top Egyptian masters of short prose: Yusuf Idris, Selva Bakr and Sabri Musa. For the subtitle was almost taken a mathematical expression 3×8=24 (based on a mystical number that in the Arab storytelling tradition serves to compare with the supreme purity of gold and, hence, to denote the perfection of the aesthetic experience).
The stories are varied in form and thematic, their language is rich and stylistically diverse, with numerous dialect passages in dialogues and monologues. They have been translated since the mid-1990s, as they came one after another, and published in daily newspapers, weekly and literary magazines. Trusting that each one deserves to be included in the anthologies of contemporary Arabic short prose, I collected them in the hope that, together, they might appeal to readers as they did to me.
Behind the selection of stories by each author is a short biographical and bibliographic note.
Pages: 203
Clio, Beograd 2022.
ISBN: 978-86-7120-669-7
