«Тахиййат»: Сборник статей в честь Н. Н. Дьякова

m 164 n Mikhail Suvorov of the former revolutionaries were kept. Imprisoned revolutionaries can also be found in some short stories of Zaid Dammaj, Muhammad Muthanna, and other writers. In South Yemeni prose of the 1980s we also find a lot of suffering, as, for example, in Sa‘id Awlaqi’s short stories “The game”, “The carnival” 1 , “The teacher’s testament” and “The nightmare”, in Abdullah Bawazir’s short story “The boots” 2 and in his collection of short stories titled “The falling of the wooden bird” (Suqut ta’ir al-khashab, 1991). The personages in all of these stories are broken people, who were unable to stand against the bureaucracy of the ruling regime. The socialist regime in South Yemen collapsed in fact in 1986, having buried all its promises, but among the southerners there still remained a hope for a better future, associated with the unification of Yemen. Signs of this hope can be found for example in Sa‘id Awlaqi’s novel “Three night-birds” (al-Summar al-thalatha, 1990), whose three main characters represent the most conscious forces of South Yemen and are strong enough to stand against the regime. In the North Yemen at the same time there started a process of democratization, and in 1990 the two parts of the country united. Though there was an impulse for new hopes at the moment of the Unification, it appeared to be too weak to find any reflection in literature, meanwhile the things in the united Yemen were going worse and worse. By the end of the 1990s a new generation came to the literary arena, among them Wajdi al-Ahdal, Muhammad al-Gharbi Amran, Ahmad Zain, Nadiya al-Kawkabani, Habib Saruri, Arwa Abdoh Uthman, Mahasin al-Hawati and Hind Haitham, who could not appreciate the meaning of the “revolutionary achievements” and had no idea of where the country was going or, better to say, falling in. Total corruption on all levels, governmental and tribal lawlessness, steady deterioration of all social services, everlasting uncivilized traditions, social inequality and poverty acquired in their writings the feature of Yemeni immanence. No purposeful hero was any longer present in their writings, no decision for national problems, and no hope for a better future. Emigration fromYemen seems to have become the only way out from this national disaster, as one can estimate from Habib Saruri’s novels “The ruined queen” (al-Malika al-maghdura, 1998), “Damlan” (2004) and “The bird of destruction” (Ta’ir al-kharab, 2005) and from Ahmad Zain’s novel “Confirmation of the status” (Tashih al-wad‘, 2004). When regarding Yemeni, and not only Yemeni national problems as immanent ones, one may ask: is there any reason in criticizing seriously what is immanent? Apparently, there is no reason. Probably, it was this answer to 1 In his collection “The double emigration” (al-Hijra marratain, 1980). 2 In his collection “The boots” (al-Hidha’, 1987).