SOURCE: Allen, Roger. Review of A Leader of Men, by Yusuf Idris. World Literature Today 63, no. 2 (spring 1989): 360-61.

In the following review, Allen asserts that the publication of an English translation of A Leader of Men “is of great benefit to students of modern Arabic and especially Egyptian fiction.”

It was in the 1950s and 1960s that the Egyptian author Yusuf Idris established his reputation as a short-story writer of genius (see WLT [World Literature Today] 55:1, pp. 43-47). His ability to encapsulate realistic “slices of life” and more symbolic and nightmarish visions within the tight strictures of the genre, his profound psychological insights into a variety of human dilemmas, and perhaps above all his intuitive and often wayward use of numerous levels of language in creating his fleeting yet memorable world—these qualities were combined into short stories which made up a large number of collections and were...