fordan 1992 In a letter to his friend Andre, Tawfiq al-Hakin says: I read and read uatil I have almost read every thing.. I have been involved in reading the literature of al nations, their philosophics and arts... I b:lieve that artists in our time should be encyckopodic (1). This quotation is an ack:10 wiedgoment of al-Hakim's extensive reading of the literature and philosophy of the west.. Moreover, in Usfur min al- Sharg (A Sparrow from the East) (1938] al-Hakim cmphasizes his exposure to western civitization;he mentic n that a man who went to Paris for odu- cation should become acquainted with various ideas and thoughts from the the Greeks to Voitaire' (2).