Abou Naddara--James Sanua [Ya'qub Rufa'il Sanu'] called Abou Naddara.

A. an autograph letter by abou naddara:

a rare letter from abou naddara addressed in french and arabic to general fourier, requesting an audience, [c.1889], Tunisia, 2pp., manuscript in black ink on paper dated "17^{e année" (i.e. 1889), signed by naddara and stamped with Abou Naddara's ink seal (see Gendzier, I.R., p.144, bibliography, unpublished work: 'letters and poems')}



B. printed works by abou naddara:



Rahlat Abou Naddara. Nos. 1-30 (with a duplicate of no.25), each number in 2 leaves. August 1878-1879, Arabic text, captions to cartoons in Arabic and French, some wear

Rahlat Abou Naddara Zarqa. 3<sup>e année. Nos. 1-27 and 29, (with duplicates of nos. 6 and 23), March-end 1879, Arabic text, captions in Arabic and French, without nos.28 and 30, a few parts slightly creased or chipped with loss of some letters

Journal Oriental. 9e année-19e année, Paris, 1885-1895, eleven years in one volume, 147 parts and one supplement, (additional wrapper to 11e année loosely inserted), text in French and Arabic, numerous illustrations throughout, some in colour, an important run of this periodical, which was published from 1877 to 1910, contemporary black morocco-backed black boards, this run without the Arabic part no.5 (1889) and French part no.11 (1892), joints splitting, binding rubbed

Journal Oriental. 10e année, nos.1-12, January to December 1886, Arabic and French text, each number in 2 leaves (parts 9 and 10 published together in 4 leaves), together with an additional copy of no.1, some wear</sup>



Sohof Abou Naddara. 1878-1910. Facsimile of the set in the Bibliothèque Nationale du Caire. 20 volumes, bound in modern half calf, spines gilt and  lettered. The first 8 volumes (220 x 305mm.) cover the years 1878 to 1884, the remaining 12 volumes (250 x 355mm.) cover the years 1885 to 1910.



C. books about abou naddara



Baignieres, Paul de. L'Égypte satirique. Album d'Abou Naddara illustré de 48 pages de gravures. Les deux affreux tyrans du Nil Tewfik et son père Ismail. Vision du Cheikh Abou Naddara. Conférences. Paris: Lefebure, 1886, 8vo, 112pp., illustrated (from the periodicals), presentation copy, inscribed by abou naddara in French to "Son Excellence M. Le Royer", President of the French Senate, and with a note in Arabic, loosely inserted is Naddara's visiting card with a note addressed to M. Le Royer with greetings for the New Year in French and Arabic, an important work, original pictorial wrappers, wrappers worn with some loss



Tagher, Jeannette. Les débuts du théâtre moderne en Égypte. Cahiers d'histoire Égyptienne, series 1, no.2, pp.192-207. Cairo: Al Maaref, 1949, 8vo, with a rare photograph of the first theatre in the "Al Azbakiya" district of Cairo, where the first modern Arabic performance was given



Nigm, Mohamed Youssef. Al Masrah Al 'Arabi, Dirasat wa Nousous, Ya'coub Sanou' (Abou Naddara). Beirut: Dar Al Sakafa, 1963, 8vo, 239pp., modern green half morocco over marbled boards, original wrappers bound in, the first collected edition of sanu's plays, 8 very rare theatrical pieces by abou naddara, published here for the first time, these had been given to the editor by Madame Louli Milhaud, Sanua's daugther (1886-1967) in their original manuscript form, the scripts were later amended, due to political circumstances. The plays are as follows:
1. A comedy called "La Bourse Egyptienne", Egyptian Stockmarket "Komedeyah toussama Boursat Masr".
2. "Komedeyah toussama bel 'Alil".
3. "Al Sawwah wal Himar". The traveller and the donkey
4. "Komedeyah toussama bi Abou Rida al Barbary, Abu Riyad the Berber wa Ma'choukateh toussama Ka'b al kheir".
5. "Komedeyah toussama bil Sadakah 'Ani Zawag Al Set Wardah ma'a ibn 'ameya".
6."Komedeyah toussama bil Amirat al Iskandaraniya". The Alexandrian Princess. (The Italian translation of this play was published by Jules Barbier in 1875)
7. "Komedeyah toussama bil Darrratan". An anti-polygamous tract exposing the rivalry between two wives and their husband. The Khédive Ismail took it as a tactless diatribe against abuses of polygamy.
8. "Mulyir Masr wa ma Yuqasih". The Molière of Egypt and what he endured.



Ghoneim, Abdel Hameed. Sanou' Ra'id Al Masrah Al Masry. Cairo: Al Dar Al Qawmiyah Lil Tiba'at Wal Nashr, 1966, 8vo, 217pp., modern black half morocco over marbled boards, gilt lettering to spine, original wrappers bound in, wrappers slightly chipped



Gendzier, Irene L. The Practical Visions of Ya'qub Sanu'. Cambridge Mass.: Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 1966, first edition, 8vo, original printed yellow wrappers, an extremely good account



'Anous, Nagwa Ibrahim Fouad. Masrah Yacoub Sanou'. Cairo: Egyptian Book Organization, 1984, 8vo, 659pp., Arabic text, a few illustrations in text, modern black half morocco over green marbled boards, gilt leather label on spine, original wrappers bound in



Ismail, Sayed Ali. Mouhakamet Masrah 'Yacoub Sanou'. Cairo: General Book Organization, 2001, 8vo, 371pp., modern black cloth, gilt red leather label to spine. (The latest publication on Abou Naddara. A virulent anti-semitic attack, and controversial study of 'Yacoub Ben Sanou' concluding that the real pioneer of the Arab theatre was Selim Al Nakash and not Abou Naddara). Gendzier (see above) wrote in 1966 that "While it may seem presumptuous to devote so much ink to the many lost and very few discovered plays, the interest these have aroused underlines Sanu' 's place in the literary history of the Arab World. He may not have been quite as "revolutionary" as some would have us believe, but by his use of the colloquial dialect and his reliance on local themes, he challenged the formal and foreign nature of the artistic tradition that monopolized the Egyptian stage". (Gendzier p.40)



Fundación Bancaja. Occidente visto desde oriente. Barcelona, 2005, 4to, with numerous illustrations in colour and some in black and white, pp.192-195 includes images from Abou Naddara's work in the Milhaud collection to illustrate the theme "The West as seen by East", original pictorial wrappers

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In the extraordinary, rich, and multi-layered culture of Egypt in the nineteenth century, with its polyglot and ethnic diversity flourishing under the weakening aegis of the Sublime Porte, and the ever more intrusive British economic and political influence, one remarkable figure stands out as both cultural innovator in the field of Arabic drama, as political commentator, and, with al-Afghani and others, as one of the founders of Egyptian nationalism. This is James Sanua, called in Arabic Ya'qub Rufa'il Sanu' but often referred to simply by his pseudonymn, Abu Naddara ('father of spectacles'.)

Born into a family of Sephardic Jews and partly educated in Italy at Livorno in the 1850s, Sanua became active as a journalist, writing in a number of languages, of which, other than Arabic, the most important was French. He played an important role in the development of the Arabic theatre in the 1870s, both as a writer of original plays in Arabic and with his adaptations of French plays, but it was as a satirical journalist that he became famous in his day, a thorn in the side of both the Khedive and the British interlopers.

Early in 1877 Sanua founded the satirical magazine Abou Naddara, which had an immediate appeal to both those who could read and those who had it read to them. It was quickly suppressed as being liberal and revolutionary, and its author banished. In March and April 1877 fifteen issues appeared, and of these no copies are known. Sanua went into exile on the 22nd of June 1878 sailing on the ship Freycinet from Alexandria to Marseilles. Exile in Paris simply redoubled his journalistic efforts, and his celebrated journal, reproduced lithographically from handwriting in both Arabic and French, continued to appear, printed at a shop aptly located in the Passage du Caire in the second arrondissement. Like many such journals it frequently changed its name, although the title which remained most constant was Rahlat Abou Naddara Zarqa... (Travels of the Man in the Blue Glasses from Egypt to Paris).

This was the first Arabic magazine to feature cartoons, the captions for these being given in French and Arabic, as well as being the first to use a form of colloquial Arabic - a language radically different from literary Arabic.

Its circulation was considerable in Egypt, where it was smuggled inside other larger newspapers (its format is small and each issue consisted only of two leaves.) There is clear evidence of its presence, even in the highest circles, in Egypt - and each issue may well have been printed in some 3300 copies. The magazine concentrated on both political and financial difficulties in Egypt, and Sanua probably had privy information from friends and well-wishers within the administration. Certainly his magazine was well-known: the Saturday Review in London printed in July 1879 a highly favourable notice, and many European memoirs of the period refer to it.

these fragile periodicals are of the greatest rarity.