In Modern and Contemporary Political Theater from the Levant, A Critical Anthology, Robert Myers and Nada Saab provide a sense of the variety and complexity of political theater produced in and around the Levant from the 1960s to the present within a context of wider discussions about political theater and the histories and forms of performance from the Islamic and Arab worlds. Five major playwrights are studied, ʿIsam Mahfuz, from Lebanon; Muhammad al-Maghut and Saʿd Allah Wannus, from Syria; Jawad al-Asadi, from Iraq, Syria and Lebanon; and Raʾida Taha, from Palestine. The volume includes translations of their plays The Dictator, The Jester, The Rape, Baghdadi Bath and Where Would I Find Someone Like You, ʿAli?, respectively.
Nada Saab, Ph.D. (2003), Yale University, is Associate Professor of Arabic Studies at the Lebanese American University. She is author of several books and articles on Arabic literature both medieval and modern and a translator of modern and contemporary Arabic drama. Robert Myers, Ph.D. (1995), Yale University, (www.robert-myers.com), is Professor of English and Director of the Center for American Studies at the American University of Beirut. The author of over fifteen plays, he is a translator and cultural historian whose research focuses on literature and theater from Latin America, the Arab world and the U.S.
