About the Author

Professor Emeritus Issa J. Boullata is a literary critic and scholar, who also writes fiction. Formerly Professor of Arabic Literature at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, he has published several books, including Trends and Issues in Contemporary Arab Thought (1990) and a novel in Arabic, Homecoming to Jerusalem (1998), in addition to numerous studies of Arabic literature, book reviews, short stories in English, and translations of Arabic poetry and of works by Ahmad Amin, Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, Mohamed Berrada, Ghada Samman, Emily Nasrallah, Hisham Sharabi, and others. Among his latest books are: as editor, Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Qur'An (2000); as author, in Arabic, A Window on Modernism: Studies in the Works of Jabra Ibrahim Jabra (2002); and as translator, Ibn DAbd Rabbih's The Unique Necklace (3 vols. 2006 - 2011). He was editor of the following journals: Al-DArabiyya (1977 - 82) and The Muslim World with W. Bijlefeld (1970 - 80), and guest editor of Oral Tradition (1989) on Arabic oral traditions and of Mundus Arabicus (1992) on the Arabic novel since 1950. He is a contributing editor of Banipal, the London