Arabic Literature: Postmodern Perspectives

by Angelika Neuwirth (Editor), Barbara Winckler (Editor), Andreas Pflitsch (Editor)

Overview

"The coverage of the region is admirable in terms of both geographical spread and literary genre. . . . This collection of articles, carefully grouped around specific themes and the authors who invoke them, is an important contribution to the study of modern Arabic literature."—Professor Roger Allen

Arabic Literature: Postmodern Perspectives introduces the work of twenty-nine pivotal authors from the Arab world writing in Arabic, English, French, and Hebrew. Organized around the central themes of memory, place, and gender, each of which is discussed in an introductory essay, the volume provides a critical framework for Arab writing, locating it alongside contemporary world literature.

The contributors maintain that Arabic literature reflects the Western postmodern condition without denying its own traditions. As such, Arabic Literature paves the way for an important cultural dialogue between East and West.

Authors covered include Adonis, Rabih Alameddine, Hoda Barakat, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Mahmoud Darwish, Assia Djebar, and Elias Khoury.

Angelika Neuwirth is chair of Arabic studies at the Free University of Berlin.

Andreas Pflitsch is a research fellow at the Center for Literary and Cultural Studies in Berlin and teaches Arabic studies at the University of Bamberg and the Free University of Berlin.

Barbara Winckler is a research fellow at the Center for Literary and Cultural Studies in Berlin and teaches modern Arabic literature at the Free University of Berlin.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780863566943
Publisher:	Saqi Books
Publication date:	09/21/2010
Pages:	496
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Angelika Neuwirth: Angelika Neuwirth is Chair of Arabic Studies at the Free University of Berlin and co-director of the Center for Literary and Cultural Studies in Berlin.

Andreas Pflitsch: Andreas Pflitsch is a Research Fellow at the Center for Literary and Cultural Studies in Berlin and teaches Arabic Studies at the University of Bamberg and the Free University of Berlin.

Barbara Winckler: Barbara Winckler is a Research Fellow at the Center for Literary and Cultural Studies in Berlin and teaches Modern Arabic Literature at the Free University of Berlin.

Table of Contents

Contents
preface 9

introduction

Postmodernism 13
Facets of a Figure of Thought
Ines Kappert

The End of Illusions 25
On Arab Postmodernism
Andreas Pflitsch

part one: memory

Introduction 41
Angelika Neuwirth

The Divinity of the Profane 65
Representations of the Divine in the Poetry of Adonis
Stefan Weidner

Days of Amber, City of Saffron 76
Edwar al-Kharrat Remembers and Writes an Unintended Autobiography
Andreas Pflitsch

On the Necessity of Writing the Present 87
Elias Khoury and the “Birth of the Novel” in Lebanon
Sonja Mejcher-Atassi

Historical Memory in Times of Decline 97
Saadallah Wannous and Rereading History
Friederike Pannewick

Linguistic Temptations and Erotic Unveilings 110
Rashid al-Daif on Language, Love, War, and Martyrdom
Angelika Neuwirth

Memories for the Future: Abdelrahman Munif 134
Susanne Enderwitz

Authenticity as Counter-Strategy: Fighting Sadat’s “Open Door” Politics 146
Gamal al-Ghitani and The Epistle of Insights into the Destinies
Stephan Guth


“This reality is deplorable” 158
The Egypt of Sonallah Ibrahim: Between Media Representation and
Experienced Everyday Reality
Andrea Haist

Hebrew Bible and Arabic Poetry 171
Reclaiming Palestine as a Homeland Made of Words: Mahmoud Darwish
Angelika Neuwirth

Traditions and Counter-Traditions in the Land of the Bible 197
Emile Habibi’s De-Mythologizing of History
Angelika Neuwirth

The Poet of the Arabic Short Story: Zakariyya Tamir 220
Ulrike Stehli-Werbeck

part two: polygamy of place

Introduction 233
Andreas Pflitsch

“From the Orient to the Occident it is just a reflection” 243
The Mirror-Worlds of Habib Tengour
Regina Keil-Sagawe

“I dream in no man’s land”: Anton Shammas 259
Christian Szyska

Exile at Home 272
Samir Naqqash – Prophecy as Poetics
Osman Hajjar

Reading the Ruins 287
Repressed Memory and Multiple Identity in the Work of Sélim Nassib
Christian Junge

British-Lebanese Identity Fallacies 302
Tony Hanania and a Malady Called Homesickness
Andreas Pflitsch

The Forbidden Paradise 311
How Etel Adnan Learnt to Paint in Arabic
Sonja Mejcher-Atassi

“So we are called Lebanese” 321
Rabih Alameddine on the Unbearable Lightness of Being
Nowhere at Home
Andreas Pflitsch

The Desert as Homeland and Metaphor 331
Reflections on the Novels of the Tuareg Writer Ibrahim al-Koni
Hartmut Fähndrich

A Surrealist Trip to Paradise and Back 342
The Iraqi Author Abdalqadir al-Janabi
Sibylla Krainick

part three: gender transgressions

Introduction 361
Barbara Winckler

Changing the Sexes between Utopia and Heterotopia 369
Tahar Ben Jelloun’s The Sand Child and The Sacred Night
Roland Spiller

Androgyny as Metaphor 382
Hoda Barakat and The Stone of Laughter
Barbara Winckler

Transgression as Program 397
On the Novels of Rachid Boudjedra
Doris Ruhe

An Egyptian Don Quixote? 410
Salah Abd al-Sabur’s Rethinking of the Majnun-Layla Paradigm
Angelika Neuwirth

On Writing in the “Language of the Enemy” 429
Assia Djebar and the Buried Voices of Algerian History
Barbara Winckler