Modern Syrian novel, its appearance, pioneers and influencing currents (1937-1967)

My research deals with the modern Syrian novel, through covering its emergence, origin, literary trends and the most prominent novelists. The study covers three decades, from the date of the first appearance of a Syrian novel in 1937, until the June 1967 war, which was an important and crucial period for the birth of a new type of novel in the Arab world in general, and in Syria as a particular. This study discusses the literary trends that appeared in the mentioned period, analyzes one novel from each literary direction, and mentions the most important writers of the Syrian novel at that stage, in addition to showing the extent of the impact of political and social conditions in Syria on the Syrian novelists, and the manifestation of that impact on their productions. The study includes an introduction, three chapters, and a conclusion. As for the introduction, it includes the importance and aim of the study, the boundaries of the study, the most important sources of this research, and the methodology followed in the study, in addition to analyzing previous studies. As for the first chapter, which comes in six sections, it contains a terminology definition of novel in Arabic literature, then a summary of modern Syria history, and a discussion of the origins of the modern Syrian novel, its stages of growth and development, as well as a highlighting of the June War, which was a crucial stage in the birth of a New Arab novel, and ended with a historical list of the novels written in the period covered by this research. As for the second chapter, it comes in four sections, and it contains literary trends in the period covered by the research and mentions the most important writers, starting with the romantic trend and then the realistic trend with its three types, "the documentary, the critical and the socialist" and then the symbolic trend, and ending with the existential trend. As for the third and final chapter, it comes in six sections, and it contains a comprehensive study of the most prominent Syrian novelists who appeared in the period covered by the research, and the number of novelists included in the research is six "Shakib Al-Jabri - Colette Khoury - Sedky Ismail - Fares Zarzour - George Salem - Mutaa Safadi, "in addition to analyzing one novel for each them, in terms of events, place and time, and the manifestation of literary trends in their novel. The aim of this research is to draw a general framework on the modern Syrian novel and its emergence, the impact of political and social conditions on the development of the novel and its writers, in addition to the influence of western literature on the formation of literary trends. First, the leading novels of the period in question were read, then reviewed for academic studies and we followed the analysis and synthesis methods with the data we obtained. As a result, the development stages of the Syrian novel were determined to be in parallel with the modern Syrian state, and realism became the dominant character in the process until 1967. After 1967, the Syrian novel gained a more independent structure.