The Novel and the Rural Imaginary in Egypt, 1880-1985

The Novel and the Rural Imaginary in Egypt, 1880-1985
Author: Samah Selim
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2004-04-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0203611446

The book locates questions of languages, genre, textuality and canonicity within a historical and theoretical framework that foregrounds the emergence of modern nationalism in Egypt. The ways in which the cultural discourses produced by twentieth century Egyptian nationalism created a space for both a hegemonic and counter-hegemonic politics of language, class and place that inscribed a bifurcated narrative and social geography, are examined. The book argues that the rupture between the village and the city contained in the Egyptian nationalism discourse is reproduced as a narrative dislocation that has continued to characterize and shape the Egyptian novel in general and the village novel in particular. Reading the village novel in Egypt as a dynamic intertext that constructs modernity in a local historical and political context rather than rehearsing a simple repetition of dominant European literary-critical paradigms, this book offers a new approach to the construction of modern Arabic literary history as well as to theoretical questions related to the structure and role of the novel as a worldly narrative genre.

The Novel and the Rural Imaginary in Egypt, 1880-1985

The Novel and the Rural Imaginary in Egypt, 1880-1985
Author: Samah Selim
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2004-07-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1134367740

The book locates questions of languages, genre, textuality and canonicity within a historical and theoretical framework that foregrounds the emergence of modern nationalism in Egypt. The ways in which the cultural discourses produced by twentieth century Egyptian nationalism created a space for both a hegemonic and counter-hegemonic politics of language, class and place that inscribed a bifurcated narrative and social geography, are examined. The book argues that the rupture between the village and the city contained in the Egyptian nationalism discourse is reproduced as a narrative dislocation that has continued to characterize and shape the Egyptian novel in general and the village novel in particular. Reading the village novel in Egypt as a dynamic intertext that constructs modernity in a local historical and political context rather than rehearsing a simple repetition of dominant European literary-critical paradigms, this book offers a new approach to the construction of modern Arabic literary history as well as to theoretical questions related to the structure and role of the novel as a worldly narrative genre.

Nasser in the Egyptian Imaginary

Nasser in the Egyptian Imaginary
Author: Omar Khalifah
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2016-10-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1474410200

The late President of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-1970), has been represented in many major works of Egyptian literature and film, and continues to have a presence in everyday life and discourse in the country. Omar Khalifah's analysis of these representations focuses on how the historical character of Nasser has emerged in the Egyptian imaginary. He explores the recurrent images of Nasser in literature and film and shows how Nasser constitutes a perfect site for plural interpretations. He argues that Nasser has become a rhetorical device, a figure of speech, a trope that connotes specific images constantly invoked whenever he is mentioned. His study makes a case for literature and art to be seen as alternative archives that question, erase, distort and add to the official history of Nasser.

Popular Fiction, Translation and the Nahda in Egypt

Popular Fiction, Translation and the Nahda in Egypt
Author: Samah Selim
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2019-07-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 303020362X

This book is a critical study of the translation and adaptation of popular fiction into Arabic at the turn of the twentieth century. It examines the ways in which the Egyptian nahda discourse with its emphasis on identity, authenticity and renaissance suppressed various forms of cultural and literary creation emerging from the encounter with European genres as well as indigenous popular literary forms and languages. The book explores the multiple and fluid translation practices of this period as a form of ‘unauthorized’ translation that was not invested in upholding nationalist binaries of originality and imitation. Instead, translators experimented with radical and complex forms of adaptation that turned these binaries upside down. Through a series of close readings of novels published in the periodical The People’s Entertainments, the book explores the nineteenth century literary, intellectual, juridical and economic histories that are constituted through translation, and outlines a comparative method of reading that pays particular attention to the circulation of genre across national borders.

The Palestinian Novel

The Palestinian Novel
Author: Bashir Abu-Manneh
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2016-04-26
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1316592189

What happens to the Palestinian novel after the national dispossession of the nakba, and how do Palestinian novelists respond to this massive crisis? This is the first study in English to chart the development of the Palestinian novel in exile and under occupation from 1948 onwards. By reading the novel in the context of the ebb and flow of Arab and Palestinian revolution, Bashir Abu-Manneh defines the links between aesthetics and politics. Combining historical analysis with textual readings of key novels by Jabra, Kanafani, Habiby, and Khalifeh, the chronicle of the Palestinian novel unfolds as one that articulates humanism, self-sacrifice as collective redemption, mutuality, and self-realization. Political challenge, hope, and possibility are followed by the decay of collective and individual agency. Genet's and Khoury's unrivalled literary homages to Palestinian revolt are also examined. By critically engaging with Lukács, Adorno, and postcolonial theory, questions of struggle and self-determination take centre stage.

Space in Modern Egyptian Fiction

Space in Modern Egyptian Fiction
Author: Yasmine Ramadan
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2019-11-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1474427669

In 1960s Egypt a group of writers exploded onto the literary scene, transforming the aesthetic landscape. Space in Modern Egyptian Fiction explores how this literary generation presents a marked shift in the representation of rural, urban and exilic space, reflecting a disappointment with the project of the postcolonial nation-state in Egypt. Combining a sociological approach to literature with detailed close readings, Yasmine Ramadan explores the spatial representations that embodied this shift within the Egyptian literary scene and the disappearance of an idealized nation in the Egyptian novel. This study provides a robust examination of the emergence and establishment of some of the most significant writers in modern Egyptian literature, and their influence across six decades, while also tracing the social, economic, political and aesthetic changes that marked this period in Egypt's contemporary history.

Histories of the Jews of Egypt

Histories of the Jews of Egypt
Author: Dario Miccoli
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2015-03-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317624211

Up until the advent of Nasser and the 1956 War, a thriving and diverse Jewry lived in Egypt – mainly in the two cities of Alexandria and Cairo, heavily influencing the social and cultural history of the country. Histories of the Jews of Egypt argues that this Jewish diaspora should be viewed as "an imagined bourgeoisie". It demonstrates how, from the late nineteenth century up to the 1950s, a resilient bourgeois imaginary developed and influenced the lives of Egyptian Jews both in the public arena, in institutions such as the school, and in the home. From the schools of the Alliance Israélite Universelle and the Cairo lycée français to Alexandrian marriage contracts and interwar Zionist newspapers – this book explains how this imaginary was characterised by a great capacity to adapt to the evolutions of late nineteenth and early twentieth century Egypt, but later deteriorated alongside increasingly strong Arab nationalism and the political upheavals that the country experienced from the 1940s onwards. Offering a novel perspective on the history of modern Egypt and its Jews, and unravelling too often forgotten episodes and personalities which contributed to the making of an incredibly diverse and lively Jewish diaspora at the crossroads of Europe and the Middle East, this book is of interest to scholars of Modern Egypt, Jewish History and of Mediterranean History.

The Oxford Handbook of Arab Novelistic Traditions

The Oxford Handbook of Arab Novelistic Traditions
Author: Waïl S. Hassan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 777
Release: 2017
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199349797

The Oxford Handbook of Arab Novelistic Traditions encompasses the genesis of the Arabic novel in the second half of the nineteenth century and its development to the present in every Arab country, as well as Arab immigrant writing in many languages around the world.

Arabic Literature for the Classroom

Arabic Literature for the Classroom
Author: Mushin al-Musawi
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2017-04-21
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1315451646

This book presents theoretical and methodical cultural concerns in teaching literatures from non-American cultures along with issues of cross-cultural communication, cultural competency and translation. Covering topics such as the 1001 Nights, Maqamat, Arabic poetry, women’s writing, classical poetics, issues of gender, race, and class, North African concerns, language acquisition through literature, Arab-spring writing, women’s correspondence, issues connected with the so called nahdah (revival) movement in the 19th century and many others, the book provides perspectives and topics that serve in both the planning of new courses and accommodation to already existing programs.

Blogging from Egypt

Blogging from Egypt
Author: Pepe Teresa Pepe
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2019-01-22
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1474434029

Six years before the Egyptian revolution of January 2011, many young Egyptians had resorted to blogging as a means of self-expression and literary creativity. This resulted in the emergence of a new literary genre: the autofictional blog. Such blogs are explored here as forms of digital literature, combining literary analysis and interviews with the authors. The blogs analysed give readers a glimpse into the daily lives, feelings and aspirations of the Egyptian youth who have pushed the country towards a cultural and political revolution. The narratives are also indicative of significant aesthetic and political developments taking place in Arabic literature and culture.