Mustafà Musharrafah : a pioneer of narrative techniques in his Qantarah alladi kafara, the first novel entirely written in Egyptian dialect

Intellectuals and writers like Ibrāhīm Aṣlān and Yūsuf Idrīs have maintained that Qanṭarah allaḏī kafara, by Muṣṭafà Mušarrafah, is one of the most wonderful novels ever written about the 1919 revolution. The peculiarity of Qanṭarah allaḏī kafara is that it is entirely written in the Egyptian dialect, and the author’s choice of the Egyptian patois is revolutionary for Egyptian literature if we consider that patois was used only in certain types of satirical literary production, jokes, and caricatures. Mušarrafah's work appears even more revolutionary if we consider that he used certain literary techniques such as stream of consciousness and interior monologue at a time when these techniques were far from being widespread in Arabic literature.