“Damage” by Kamal Khalladi (Morocco)

Modern Arabic theater has been graced with some excellent playwrights: Tawfiq al-Hakim, of course, who is credited with founding modern Arabic drama, and who perhaps would have won the 1988 “Arab” Nobel for Literature had he not died the year before it was awarded. Sa’adallah Wannus. Alfred Faraj. Yusuf Idris, who was also on the “shortlist” for the ’88 Nobel. (Roger Allen names many more.)

Yet little Arabic theatrical work has been translated into English.