The theme of the Arab in Europe, with all its cultural implications, is one that has found expression in Arabic fiction from a relatively early period in the evolution of the genre. The Egyptian writer Yusuf Idris has made two major contributions in the form of two long short stories separated by a time gap of some twenty years. The first is ‘Madame Vienna’, published in 1959, and the second is ‘New York 80’, published in 1980. The present author describes Idris’s attitude to the cultural encounter as it emanates from the two works, as well as the techniques Idris uses to analyse it. He also examines whether the twenty-year gap between the stories and the change of setting from Europe to America has served to modify Idris’s vision in any way. He then deals with a number of other stories by Idris which represent further demonstrations of the writer’s continuing preoccupation with the theme of the cultural encounter between East and West. The conclusion is that this encounter is an issue that preoccupied Yusuf Idris throughout most of his career from the 1950s to the 1980s. His favourite way of treating the theme is through the exploration of a metaphorical sexual relation between an Eastern man and a Western woman. Bibliogr., notes, ref.
