Zaynab

Muhammad Husayn Haykal's novel Zaynab is considered the first modern Egyptian novel, published in 1913. "Zaynab: Country Scenes and Morals" depicts life in the Egyptian countryside and delves into the traditional romantic and marital relationships between men and women and the interactions between the laboring cotton worker and plantation owner classes. The novel is a seminal event in Egyptian literature, since it was the first to feature a fully described, contemporary Egyptian setting and the first to feature dialogue in the Egyptian vernacular rather than formal standard written Arabic.