Samir Naqqash and His Polyglotic Literaturein the Age of National Partition
Almog Behar and Yuval Evri challenge the familiar image of Samir Naqqash as the “last” Arab-Jewish writer clinging nostalgically to a dying language. They argue that his prose weaves Baghdadi Jewish and other dialects, Judeo-Arabic traditions and modern literary Arabic into a multilingual fabric that resists the linguistic and literary partitions created by colonialism, nationalism and secularization.
Samīr Naqqāsh: Between the Sacred and the Demonic
Geula Elimelekh surveys the work of Samīr Naqqāsh (1938–2004), who emigrated from Iraq to Israel at thirteen but wrote only in Arabic. She argues that one theme unifies his life and fiction: modern humanity, severed from its roots and bereft of faith, has lost its way between sacred and demonic forces, in a world where a benevolent God stays hidden and chaos, dehumanization and the absurd prevail.
Samīr Naqqāsh: From One Universe to Another—Iraq to Israel
Starting from the paradox that Babylon, the archetypal land of exile, was home to Iraqi Jews, Geula Elimelekh reads Naqqāsh’s fiction as testimony of a “double diaspora”: emigration to Israel felt like uprooting, not homecoming. Through stories such as “Willow Night,” “In the House of Tatters and Wonders” and “Ṭanṭal,” she shows how he contrasts a rich lost world in Baghdad with the humiliations of immigrant life, using memory to preserve the civilization he lost.
The Search for Identity in the Works of Samīr Naqqāsh
Geula Elimelekh examines how Samīr Naqqāsh, uprooted from Baghdad in the mass emigration of Iraqi Jews to Israel, struggled with alienation and an unresolved search for identity. Focusing on the collections I, They and Ambivalence (1978) and The Day the World Became Pregnant and Miscarried (1980), she shows how his stories set a cherished Iraqi childhood against his difficult life in Israel.
Performance and Ideological Vision in the Fictional Narrative Discourse of Samir Naqqash
يسعى البحث إلى تقديم فهم أعمق لسمات الرواية العربية التي كتبها اليهود العرب، من خلال روايات سمير نقاش، بعد أن أهملها النقد الروائي العربي المعاصر. ويتوزع على أربعة محاور: إسهام اليهود العرب في الأدب العربي القديم، والمعلومة السردية والذاكرة وتعدد أشكال الراوي، والعلاقة بين الهوية والمكان لدى كاتب يهودي وعربي في آن، والأسلوب التجريبي وتوظيف الخطاب، ويختتم بتوصيات.
The Conflict of Identities in the Novels of Samir Naqqash
تتناول هذه الدراسة صراع الهويات في روايات الكاتب العراقي اليهودي سمير نقاش، الذي شكّلت هجرته القسرية من العراق إلى إسرائيل عام 1950 صدمةً لازمته طوال حياته. وتبيّن أن شخصياته تعيش حالة ضياع واقتلاع من وطنها الأم، وتحلّل صراع الهوية عبر ثلاثة محاور: الهوية الدينية والتمسك بالموروث الديني، والهوية الثقافية والتمسك باللغة العربية، والهوية الوطنية والحنين إلى العراق.
A Metaphysical World View (I)
Binyamin Rish reads Naqqāsh’s story “The Day the World Became Pregnant and Miscarried” as a philosophical text about how people come to know themselves and the world. Its two protagonists embody opposing traditions. Isḥāq ʿĪda is a misanthropic empiricist who believes in a vengeful God, and Shaul Hillel is a humanist rationalist who believes in a merciful one. The article argues that Naqqāsh shows both approaches failing, portraying human existence as permanently caught in duality.