Denys Johnson-Davies Book order (chronological)

The Story of Hai bin Yaqzan is a truly remarkable product of 12th-century Moorish Spain. It is widely regarded as the prototype for Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Best described, perhaps, as a philosophical romance, it tells the story of a young man, cast upon a deserted island as an infant, suckled and reared by a doe, who succeeds by his own efforts in fitting himself for life in his natural environment. The author, bin Tufail, was one of the outstanding philosophers and scientists of his day, and hence many strands are woven into the fabric of the tale. Hai's physical development is paralleled by his psychological and spiritual development; astonishingly modern ideas on physiology, on the process of evolution, on the "scientific method," all find their place in knowledge which his observation and intuition combine to produce.  Above all, the book is an allegory of the path towards enlightenment.

"Here, finally, is some writing with a genuine purchase on things of worth. The collection of pithy short stories, filled with a sad wonder, tells of contemporary Egyptians . . . timorously rebelling against the conformism of life along the Nile." ?Observer ". . . Bakr emerges as a fine observer of her country's times, with a vision which remains, for all its engagement, quirky and distinctively personal." ? Times Literary Supplement Set among the poor of contemporary Cairo, these thirteen stories and one short novella tell of women struggling to provide themselves with the basic necessities of life. They explore the limits of self-awareness, the pressures to conform, and some of the strange paths to escape that women resort to in a conservative society shot through with social and sexual prejudice and preconceptions.