מאמרים ומחקרים
הסופר היהודי הכי מפורסם שלא הכרתם: למה לא שמעתם על סמיר נקאש?
מרים זקהיים
أشهر كاتب يهودي لم تكن تعرفه: لماذا لم تسمع بسمير نقاش؟
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.
A Translator Against His Will: Samir Naqqash — A Multilingual Writer in an Age of National Divisions
אלמוג בהר ויובל עברי מראים כיצד יצירתו של סמיר נקאש מדובבת קולות מושתקים ולשונות מודחקות. לשונו נעה מן הערבית הספרותית אל ריבוי קולות, הכולל את הניב היהודי־בגדאדי, ניבים מדוברים נוספים ושפות כמו פרסית, תורכית, עברית וארמית. כך היא מטשטשת את הגבולות בין שפה, קהילה וטריטוריה. המחברים קושרים את הרב־לשוניות הזו לביוגרפיה של נקאש ולנדודיו, ומערערים על הדימוי של בחירה בינארית בין עברית לערבית.
Approaching Experimentalism in Arabic Literature: About a Novel by Samir Naqqash
Michele Barontini discusses the formal experimentation of Samir Naqqash, whose writing reaches its experimental peak in the novel Fuwwa ya dam. Taking Abdulrahman al-Wahhabi’s study of Naqqash and its place in Saudi literary criticism as a starting point, the article offers observations on how the novel handles the dimension of time.
Exile as Reflected in the Works of Samir Naqqash and Abd al-Rahman Munif
גאולה אלימלך משווה בין תמת הגלות ביצירותיהם של שני סופרים. הראשון הוא סמיר נקאש, יהודי יליד עיראק שעלה לישראל ב־1951 והמשיך לכתוב בערבית. השני הוא עבד אל־רחמן מֻניף, סופר סעודי שנשללה אזרחותו וחי בגלות במזרח התיכון ובאירופה. המאמר מנתח את היחסים בין כתיבה לגלות. הוא מראה כי למרות ההבדלים ביניהם, שניהם נמנעו מאימוץ זהות יציבה חדשה ובחרו לחיות באזור הדמדומים של השייכות.
Kafkaesque Metamorphosis as Reflected in the Works of Samir Naqqash
Geula Elimelekh compares Samir Naqqash with Franz Kafka, showing that dehumanization and metamorphosis recur in Naqqash’s stories as they do in Kafka’s. Like Kafka, Naqqash moves from a specific local reality, that of Iraqi Jews, to universal themes of the twentieth century: man abandoned without divine providence, chasing reason and science after the collapse of his spiritual world.
Samir Naqqash and His Polyglotic Literaturein the Age of National Partition
Almog Behar; Yuval Evri
ألموغ بيهار، يوفال عفري
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
Geula Elimelekh
جيئولا إليملك
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.
