Through a close-reading of a corpus of novels featuring young protagonists in their path toward adulthood, the book shows how Bildungsroman impacted the formation of the Egyptian narrative. On a larger scale, the book helps the reader to understand the key role played by the coming of age novel in the definition and perception of modern Arab subjectivity.
Exploring the role of Bildungsroman in shaping the canonical Egyptian novel, the book discusses the case of Zaynab by Muhammad Husayn Haykal (1913) as an example of early Arab Bildungsnarrative. It focuses on Latifa Zayyat’s masterpiece The Open Door and the novels of the 90es Generation, offering a gender-based analysis of the Egyptian Bildungsroman. It provides insightful readings about the function of the novel in women’s re-negotiation of social boundaries. The study shows how the stories of youth present universal themes such as the thwarted quest for love, the struggle for personal fulfilment, the desire to achieve a cultural modernity often felt as "other than self".
The book is a journey in the Twentieth Century Egyptian Novel, seen through the lens of the transnational form of Bildungsroman. It is a key resource to students and academics interested in Arabic literature, comparative literature and cultural studies.
Author(s): Maria Elena Paniconi
Series: Routledge Advances in Middle East and Islamic Studies
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 244
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Building the nation, imagining the youth in early 20th-century Egypt
1.1 The Concept of “historical generation" and the emerging shabāb (“educated youth”) in the early 20th century
1.2 The split narrations of Egyptian youth (1907-1936)
2 The way of the Egyptian novel: Zaynab by Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal
2.1 A chat on a Parisian terrace
2.2 Morphology of a literary success
2.3 Hāmid's suspended trajectory
3 National allegory and Bildungsnarrative in ‘Awdat al-rūḥ (Return of the Spirit) by Tawfīq al-Ḥakīm
3.1 The national allegory in ‘Awdat al-rūḥ
3.2 ‘Awdat al-rūḥ as Künstlerroman
4 A personal, feminist, anti-colonial awakening: Al-Bāb al-maftūḥ (The Open Door) by Laṭīfa al-Zayyāt
4.1 Opening the canon: the first Arab female Bildung
4.2 Body, voice, domestic space and public space in Laylā's development
4.3 Al-bāb al-maftūḥ as “narrative of awakening”
5 The crisis-plot: Adīb by Ṭāhā Ḥusayn and Qindīl Umm Hāshim by Yaḥyā Ḥaqqī
5.1 The trope of the journey to Europe in the modern(ist) Egyptian novel
5.2 Anachronistic youth and “out-of-season” Bildung: Adīb by Ṭāhā Ḥusayn and Qindīl Umm Hāshim by Yaḥyā Ḥaqqī
6 The “disillusionment plot” in Najīb Maḥfūẓ and ‘Abd al-Ḥakīm Qāsim
6.1 The historical disillusion and the change of narrative paradigm
6.2 Al-Qāhira al-jadīda (New Cairo) in the context of the canonisation of Maḥfūẓ
6.3 The paradigm of the loss of illusion in Maḥfūẓ
6.4 al-Qāhira al-jadīda: modernity as a simulacrum
6.5 'Abd al-'Azīz’s pilgrimage towards himself in Ayyām al-insān al-sab‘a (The Seven Days of Man) by 'Abd al-Ḥakīm Qāsim
7 Antiphrastic Bildung and multiple selves in the avant-garde literary movement
7.1 The Egyptian avant-garde movements and the Bildungsnarrative: beyond the national identity
7.2 The anti-Bildung: Sharaf by Ṣun 'allāh Ibrāhīm
7.3 Growth and splitting in two in Al-Khibā’ by Mīrāl al-Ṭaḥāwi
7.4 The feminist “development novel”: Faraj by Raḍwā ‘Āshūr
Epilogue
The prevailing models: soul-nation allegory and crisis-plot
Transversal themes
Gendered teloi
Two examples of Bildungsnarrative in contemporary fiction
The Egyptian Bildungsnarrative: a genre in progress
Bibliography
Index
