This book is a rare little treasure. It’s only 110 pages and is made up of 17 short stories. What makes it so significant is that it is a collection produced before Western audiences really developed a taste for Arabic fiction. The stories written in here were originally published between the 1930s and the 1970s, so they lean much earlier (or later, given the importance of the classical tradition) than most Arabic short stories published today.

What’s more, the collection gives as much weight to the stories of the Maghrib as it does to those of the East. When Arabic literature was translated into English, it was most often produced by Egyptian authors, as well as some Lebanese, Syrian, Palestinian, and–occasionally–Iraqi. This collection includes a strong performance by authors from Morocco and Tunisia as well. I’m unsure if they’ve been translated into French, but it is nice to see North African stories in English.

Not all of the stories here are top-notch, although many are. The significance in the collection is less about the excellence of the stories and more about what it includes. Even so, the translations were solid, and the first (Iraqi) and last (Moroccan) stories in the volume were especially strong showings.