Title: The Hostage

Author: Zayd Mutee' Dammaj (Yemeni)

Translators: Qi Mingmin, Ding Shuhong

Publisher: Sino-Culture Press

Edition: First Edition, April 2018

Format: 16 - mo, Soft - bound Hardcover

Printed Sheets: 6

Word Count: 45,000 words

ISBN: 9787507548686

Price: 28.00 CNY

The Hostage is a monumental work in Yemeni literary history. In the novel, the author demonstrates a masterful writing technique. On the surface level of the narrative, it tells the story of "my" three role - changes, and the self - awareness develops from defending human dignity to self - survival, revealing that resistance and struggle are the only way out. On the deep - level narrative, it presents a series of political changes in Yemen around 1948. The personal experience of the hostage's pursuit of freedom and the country's history of breaking away from autocratic rule are perfectly integrated into the same text, showing the author's ingenuity.

Zayd Mutee' Dammaj is a renowned Yemeni writer. He was born in Ibb Governorate, Yemen. He studied law and journalism at Cairo University. He was a member of the first Yemeni Parliament. Later, he served as the chairman of the Parliamentary Culture Committee. He was once the governor of Mahwit Governorate and then shifted to diplomatic work, working at the Yemeni Embassy in the UK. His main works include short - story collections such as The Ghost of Hawban, The Scorpion, The Bridge, The Sorrow of the Girl Maysa, The Yellow Cannon, the novella The Hostage, and the autobiography Dazzled and Amazed.

Qi Mingmin: A professor. In March 1978, as one of the first batch of college entrance examination candidates after the Cultural Revolution (known as the Class of 1977), he was admitted to the Arabic Department of Beijing Foreign Studies University at that time. He graduated from undergraduate studies in January 1982, and in March of the same year, he became one of the first postgraduate students in the Arabic Department of BFSU. He stayed at the university to teach in 1985 and obtained his doctorate in 1993. He has successively served as the director of the postgraduate teaching and research section of the department, the deputy director of the university's postgraduate office; First Secretary of the Chinese Embassy in Libya, vice - president of the Chinese Association for Arab Literature, secretary - general of the Chinese Arabic Language Teaching Research Association, and secretary - general of the Arabic Sub - committee of the Foreign Language Professional Teaching Steering Committee of the Ministry of Education. His main professional fields are ancient Arabic literature and Arab society and culture. He has presided over and participated in the compilation of five textbooks. He has won several teaching and research awards at the university and provincial - ministerial levels. He has worked as a written translator for the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for two years and has served as an interpreter (consecutive and simultaneous) for dozens of national conferences.

Ding Shuhong: An associate researcher. She graduated from the Arabic Department of Beijing Foreign Studies University in 1988 and obtained a master's degree in Arabic Language and Literature from BFSU in 1998. Now she works in the Arabic Department of BFSU, with her research direction being Arabic literature. Her published papers mainly include A Glimpse of the Research on Naguib Mahfouz in China, The Image of the Egyptian Queen in Different Cultural Contexts - Cleopatra in the Works of Shakespeare and the Egyptian Writer Shawqi, and Motif and Transmutation - An Analysis of the Story of "Qais and Laila", etc. She has participated in the translation of The Hostage and One Thousand and One Nights.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3