Occidentalism and the Egyptian Novel

Politics, Poetics and Modernity

Lorenzo Casini (University of Messina, Italy)

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English

I.B. Tauris
26 December 2024

Literary studies: post-colonial literature; Gender studies: women; Nationalism

This book examines Occidentalism, or the set of cultural, literary and political uses of ‘the West’, in the works of canonical 20th and 21st century Egyptian novelists. Beginning with the writings of Muhammad Husayn Haykal, Lorenzo Casini here traces the way that imaginaries and representations of the West became bound up with the notions of modernity and national identity with which Egyptian novelists grappled, from the works of Tawfiq al-Hakim to those of Taha Husayn. The book also explores the trope of the European woman as an embodiment of the free, modern, seductive West as an essential facet of Occidentalism in this formative period.

The second part of the book examines the ways in which later novelists —from Latifa al-Zayyat and Yusuf Idris, to Radwa Ashur and Ahdaf Soueif— subverted dominant Occidentalist themes as a way of re-examining concepts of personal, political, and national identity. The author argues that these later novelists reacted to the changing political circumstances in Egypt, from Nasser’s rule and the slide to authoritarianism to the 2011 Revolution, to envisage different kinds of Egyptian political community with a more complicated and less binary relationship with the imagined West.

By: Lorenzo Casini (University of Messina Italy)
Imprint: I.B. Tauris
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9780755646272
ISBN 10: 0755646274
Pages: 176
Publication Date: 26 December 2024
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Undergraduate , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Lorenzo Casini is Associate Professor of Arabic Language and Literature at the University of Messina, Italy. He is the co- author of Fuori degli argini (2003) and Modernità arabe (2012) and the co-editor of Minnena (2020) and Migration in the Making of the Gulf Space (2022).

Reviews for Occidentalism and the Egyptian Novel: Politics, Poetics and Modernity

A fascinating and insightful exploration of the importance and many uses of the idea of the West in Egyptian literature, and an important contribution to our understanding of Occidentalism. * Alastair Bonnett, Professor of Social Geography, Newcastle University *