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Identifies an emerging genre within the contemporary Egyptian novel that reflects a new consciousness
During colonial times the Egyptian novel invoked the concept of a sovereign nation-state and basked in its perceived unity. After independence the novel began to profess disenchantment with state practices and unequal class and gender relations, but did not disrupt the nation's imagined homogeneity. The twenty-first-century Egyptian novel, by contrast, shatters this singular view, with the rise of a new consciousness that presents Egypt as fundamentally diverse.
This new consciousness responds to discourses of difference and practices of differentiation within the contexts of race, religion, class, gender, sexuality and language. It also heralds the cacophony of voices that collectively cried for social justice from Tahrir Square. Through a robust analysis of several 'new-consciousness' novels by award-winning authors, Minorities in the Contemporary Egyptian Novel highlights their unconventional, yet coherent undertakings to foreground the marginal experiences of the Nubian, Amazigh, Bedouin, Coptic, Jewish, female and sexual-minority populations in Egypt.
Key Features
. Includes case studies of the novels of eight authors: Idris ¿Ali, Baha¿ ¿ahir, ¿Ala¿ al-Aswani, Yusuf Zaydan, Mu¿tazz Futayha, Ashraf al-Khumaysi and Miral al-Tahawi
. Shows how these novels have taken on a mediatory role in formalising and articulating their historical moment
. Critically examines the recent developments within the Egyptian literary and socio-cultural arenas
Mary Youssef is Assistant Professor of Arabic in the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies at the State University of New York, Binghamton.
Cover image: a Muslim man holds the hand of a Coptic Christian © iStockphoto.com, woman crouching in Siwan house © Deddeda / Design Pics, two Egyptian Nubian men and a cow © Shutterstock.com and Muslim and Christian women holding hands.
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ISBN 978-1-4744-1541-5
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List of contents
Acknowledgments; Note on Transliteration and Translation; Introduction: Historical Transformations: Framing a New Consciousness in the Contemporary Egyptian Nove; 1. History and Representation of Otherness in ¿Ali Idris's al-Nubi and Baha¿ Tahir's Wahat al-ghurub; 2. Reading Cosmopolitanism in Yusuf Zaydan's Azazeel and Mu¿tazz Futayha's Akhir yahud al-iskandariyya; 3.The Irrecuperable Heterogeneity of the Present in ¿Ala¿ al-Aswani's The Yacoubian Building and Chicago; 4. Heart Deserts, Memory and Myth between Life and Death in Asharaf al-Khumaysi's Manafi al-rabb and Miral al-Tahawi's The Tent; Epilogue: New Directions.
About the author
Mary Youssef is Assistant Professor of Arabic in the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies at the State University of New York, Binghamton. She has published an article in Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics.
Summary
Through a robust analysis of several 'new-consciousness' novels by award winning authors the book highlights their unconventional, yet coherent undertakings to foreground the marginal experiences of the Nubian, Amazigh, Bedouin, Coptic, Jewish, women and sexual minority populations in Egypt.
