SOURCE: Kurpershoek, P. M. Introduction to The Short Stories of Yusuf Idris, pp. 1-18. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981.¹

In the following essay, Kurpershoek traces the development of the short story genre in Egypt and locates Idris's place within that tradition.

Ever since his first collection of short stories appeared in 1954, Yūsuf Idrīs has been generally recognised as the genre's leading representative among the artists who rose to prominence with the 1952 Revolution.² Therefore it is all the more astonishing that his production in this field by no means received the earnest attention from Egyptian critics which, by their unanimous judgement, it deserved;³ and what they wrote on this subject pales into insignificance beside the amount of criticism devoted to his theatrical works.⁴

In showing comparatively little interest in the short story (uqṣūṣa, qiṣṣa qaṣīra), while acknowledging Idrīs' mastery of it, the arbiters of...