America in An Arab Mirror: Images of America in Arabic Travel Literature: An Anthology

by Kamal Abdel-Malek, Mouna El Kahla (Editor)

This distinguished anthology presents for the first time in English travel essays by Arabic writers who have visited America in the second half of the century. The view of America which emerges from these accounts is at once fascinating and illuminating, but never monolithic. The writers hail from a variety of viewpoints, regions, and backgrounds, so their descriptions of America differently engage and revise Arab pre-conceptions of Americans and the West. The country figures as everything from the unchanging Other, the very antithesis of the Arab self, to the seductive female, to the Other who is both praiseworthy and reprehensible.

165 pages, Hardcover

First published May 31, 2000

About the author

Kamal Abdel-Malek is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at Brown University.

Reviews

[Natalie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sorry, did not like that book at all.

Specially the part with America as the Seductive Female, were the poor (fictionalized) man can not resist the faithless and ruthless temptress, a Prostitute aka = AMERICA.

Its all about people unable to communicate and preferring to judge before asking questions. Going to live, visit or even teach as a professor in a country, especially coming from a totally different culture, without preparing the least bit, is irresponsible. So the jogging anecdote is implausible.

Please fell free to disabuse me on this one.

[Me Greenleaf · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an American living in the MENA region, I found this really interesting and enlightening. Particularly some of the perspectives on American women by Arab men — now I have a better understanding of how I’m seen here and a partial explanation for the sexual harassment foreign women experience.

[Barefoot Danger · Rating 2 out of 5]

First, this isn't an anthology of travel writing - though many of the earlier pieces in the book fit that description, there's really a lot more to the book than that, including fiction and cultural criticism. Supposedly separated by theme, the organization really makes no sense, including an "appendix" that's just another piece that apparently didn't fit in anywhere else? The translations are generally stilted and full of spelling (and other) errors, and the whole volume is in very pressing need of a copy editor. Furthermore, while the introductions to each piece are good about giving context as to the author and the other aspects of the work from which it's taken, the editors never point out which writers make obvious mistakes or spread falsehoods. Case in point are the retelling of various myths from American history that most Americans know to be untrue, assertions about aspects of American life that make no sense, and the occasional reference to the International Zionist Conspiracy or the secret ruling of America by a Jewish cabal. Yikes.

[Zora O'Neill · Rating 4 out of 5]

So fascinating to see how visitors to the U.S. see the country! And humbling to read, as a travel writer, to see how it's so easy to get the wrong impression of a place and its people. There are some laughably weird/wrong details in here (Colorado is famous for its oranges?!), but also some illuminating assumptions that reveal a lot about the person writing. And there are also some very insightful selections, focusing on elements of American culture we're so immersed in, we barely notice (advertising everywhere, for instance).

[Mohammed Asiri · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an anthology, which means it gives you a glance of the topic discussed. The author gather all travel books written about America by Arab writers from the late 19 century. There is no a stable image of America because the different viewpoints of writers.
Each chapter includes an overview of one memoir and all books in one chapter have one theme: sarcastic, seductive, feminist and so on.

By the way, the author is well-known in this particular field because of his great work on the image of America in Arab writing and of his living in both United States and Canada.