The Other Shore: Dialogue and Difference in MahdīĪsā al-aqrʹs al-Shāi al-thānī

MahdīĪsā al-aqr was a prominent member of the Fifties Generation of Iraqi writers, a contemporary of Abd al-Malik Nūrī and Badr Shākir al-Sayyāb. Initially a short-story writer, he published seven novels in the last two decades of his life, which are remarkable for their technical innovation. After a brief introduction to the writer, his novel al-Shāi al-thānī (The Other Shore) is discussed in detail, with particular focus on the unusual use of internal dialogue and second-person narration. It is through dialogue that the main character, an unassuming and introverted schoolteacher, is shown confronting an unforeseen change in his mundane life. ‘The other shore’ of the title is more than a symbol for a risky way of living for the protagonist: the division between the two shores (of the Sha al-Arab in Basra) emerges at the end of the novel as a symbol of the division between the powerful and the non-powerful in Iraqi society.