The Experimental Arabic Novel: Postcolonial Literary Modernism in the Levant

by Meyer, Stefan G.; Akhavi, Shahrough

• ISBN13: 9780791447345
• ISBN10: 0791447340
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-12-01
• Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr

Summary

The Experimental Arabic Novel places the modern and contemporary Arabic novel in the context of the modernist-postmodern culture debate in the West. Tracing the development of experimentalism in the modern Arabic novel from the 1960s to the present, Meyer argues that it is possible to speak of distinct literary modernisms that have each evolved with a different set of characteristics, depending upon the nature of their historical antecedents. This approach to postcolonial literature offers a way to compare and contrast it meaningfully with Western literature without relying on inherently Western literary models.

Author Biography

Stefan G. Meyer teaches at Siena Heights University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Preface	xiii
Arabic Transliteration Symbols	xvi
Glossaries of Arabic Names	xvii
Introduction: The Experimental Arabic Novel and Comparative Modernisms	1	(14)
Modernist Ambivalence and the Beginnings of Narrative Experimentation	15	(56)
Existentialism and the Fragmentation of Narrative Voice	15	(24)
The Defamiliarization of Narrative	39	(15)
The Strategy of Ironic Distance	54	(17)
Recovering the Past: The ``Arabization'' of the Novel	71	(46)
Cultural and Historical Counternarrative: Abdelrahman Munif	71	(16)
Magical Realism: Salim Barakat	87	(10)
Folk Narrative and Subjective Expression	97	(20)
Rediscovering the Present: The Lebanese Civil War	117	(58)
Fragmented Reportage: Ghada Samman	117	(12)
The Patchwork Novel: Elias Khoury	129	(11)
The Dynamics of War and Sexuality	140	(19)
The Novel of Interior Situations	159	(16)
Redefining the Future: Questions of Artistic Choice	175	(80)
The ``Mirage of Language'' and the ``Dust of Life''	175	(18)
The Conflict between Political and Artistic Commitment	193	(16)
The Limits of Masculine Perspective	209	(17)
The Dialectical Solution	226	(15)
Mimicking Postmodernity	241	(14)
Conclusion: The Experimental Arabic Novel and Postmodern Discourse	255	(26)
Notes	281	(16)
Bibliography	297	(12)
Index	309