Specters of World Literature: Orientalism, Modernity, and the Novel in the Middle East

At the heart of this book is a spectral theory of world literature that draws on Edward Said, Aamir Mufti, Jacques Derrida and world—systems theory to assess how the field produces local literature as an "other" that haunts its universalising, assimilative imperative with the force of the uncanny. It takes the Middle Eastern novel as both metonym and metaphor of a spectral world literature. It explores the worlding of novels from the Middle East in recent years, and, focusing on the pivotal...