Description
Join historian and writer Peter Clark, playwright Hassan Mahamdallie, and artist, producer and relative Sarah Pickthall for a special launch event celebrating the republication of Marmaduke Pickthall’s popular novel, Saïd the Fisherman, as they discuss the impact that Pickthall’s travels and spiritual journey had on his fiction writing.
Few literary figures have quite such an intriguing story as Marmaduke Pickthall. He was a celebrated novelist and Muslim convert responsible for arguably the biggest shift in British understanding of the Quran.
The son of an Anglican clergyman, he became a successful novelist and short story writer admired by the likes of D. H. Lawrence, H. G. Wells and more recently Barry Humphries (aka Dame Edna Everage). He was also a renowned Middle Eastern scholar noted for his 1930 English translation of the Quran, called The Meaning of the Glorious Koran, and after converting to Islam he changed his name to Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall.
A special collection of his short stories, A Question of Precedence and Other Middle East Stories, has recently been published by Beacon Books, with his entire fiction collection due for release soon.
Related Book
A Question of Precedence and Other Middle East Stories
Marmaduke Pickthall, Peter Clark
Shop on Waterstones
About the Authors
Peter Clark
Peter Clark is a writer and translator. Born in Yorkshire, he has degrees from Keele and Leicester Universities and is a Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). For over thirty years he worked for the British Council, mostly in the Arab world. He has translated nine books from Arabic, six works of fiction and three histories. His Marmaduke Pickthall British Muslim was published in 1986, and reissued by Beacon Books in 2016. He has also edited two volumes of Pickthall’s fiction, and written books on Charles Dickens and on Winston Churchill.
Hassan Mahamdallie
Hassan Mahamdallie is an author, playwright and theatre director. A former Director of the progressive fellowship the Muslim Institute, he is senior editor on its journal Critical Muslim. Hassan is the founder of theatre company Dervish Productions. His latest play ‘Quiet Rebels’ (with Julie McNamara) toured nationally in Autumn 2022. Hassan’s book Crossing the ‘River of Fire’: The Socialism of William Morris is now available in its second edition.
Join Our Mailing List
By submitting this form you agree to our Privacy Policy and to receive marketing emails, including e-newsletters and event updates from Bradford Literature Festival.