Naguib Mahfouz at Sidi Gaber : reflections of a Nobel laureate : 1994-2001 : from conversations with Mohamed Salmawy


Book Description

"This volume, published on the occasion of the Nobel laureate's 90th birthday, brings together a selection of the more personal, reflective pieces that have appeared over the past seven years. They reveal a writer concerned as always with the human condition, with his own thought processes, and with the craft of writing, offering rare insights into the way a great writer thinks and works. The range and quality of writing is even more remarkable when one remembers that since a nearly fatal knife attack in 1994, the injuries Mahfouz sustained, combined with his failing eyesight, have made it almost impossible for him to write. But as a man who has devoted his life to the written word, Mahfouz now prepares his weekly articles through conversations with his friend Mohamed Salmawy, who has selected and gathered the pieces in this collection.




Global Perspectives on Orhan Pamuk


Book Description

Explores existential and political themes in Orhan Pamuk's work and investigates the apparent contradictions in an arena where Islam and democracy are often seen as opposing and irreconcilable terms. Existential themes delve into literary nuances in Pamuk that discuss love, happiness, suffering, memory and death.




Arab Regionalism


Book Description

Arab regionalism details and examines the power relations involved in the making of an Arab region. On an empirical level, this book concentrates on the drawing of topographic and ideational boundaries in the Arab region, on Arab regional organizations, on the functional cooperation among Arab states and institutions, and on the socio-cultural infra-structure that supports the Arab region making process, with a strong focus on post-1990 dynamics. On a theoretical level, this work makes a case for the analytical autonomy of "Arab" regionalism (as opposed to regionalism in the Middle East or in the Mediterranean) and for the necessity of approaching it as an actual process instead of a failed project. The attitude of debasement and erasure towards Arab regionalism that is common-place in the field of regional studies is replaced in this book for the acknowledgment that there is much more political coordination, economic cooperation and social integration in the Arab region than has previously been assumed. Providing a fresh perspective on Arab regionalism, this book will be an essential resource for scholars and researchers with an interest in Regionalism, Middle Eastern Politics and International Relations.




The Dream


Book Description

In this new collection of his shortest short stories, the Egyptian Nobel laureate has reduced fictional form to its most essential level, while retaining his justifiably famous mastery of the storytelling art. A man finds that all the streets in this neighborhood have turned into a circus - but his joy at the sight changes to anger when he sees he cannot escape it anywhere, even in his own home. A group of lifelong friends meet to trade jokes in a familiar alley - only to face a sudden, deadly flood that echoes the revenge taken by an ancient Egyptian queen upon the men who murdered her husband. A girl from the dreamer's childhood flies with him from his native lane on a cart drawn by a winged horse, to become a star in the firmament above the Great Pyramid. Such is the stuff of Naguib Mahfouz's The Dreams - his first major work since a knife attack by a religious fanatic in 1994 left him unable to write for several years. First serialized in a Cairo magazine, The Dreams is a unique and haunting mixture of the deceptively quotidian, the seductively lyrical, and the savagely nightmarish - the richly condensed sum of more than nine decades of artistic genius and everyday experience.




Reading Ancient Egyptian Poetry


Book Description

In Reading Ancient Egyptian Poetry, Richard Parkinson explores how ancient Egyptian poems have been read and perceived across the ages. Presents an innovative and theoretically-informed account of how the most famous ancient Egyptian poems have been read over 4,000 years From a leading expert in the interpretation of ancient Egyptian literature Explores the original experience of ordinary Egyptians enjoying the poems as well as their interpretation during the Middle Kingdom and up to modern times Draws on recent discoveries in the British Museum archives to reconstruct the contexts of the poems




Poetics of Love in the Arabic Novel


Book Description

Considers the Arabic novel within the triangle of the nation-state, modernity and traditionWen-Chin Ouyang explores the development of the Arabic novel, especially the ways in it engages with aesthetics, ethics and politics in a cross-cultural context and from a transnational perspective.Taking love and desire as the central tropes , the story of the Arabic novel is presented as a series of failed, illegitimate love affairs, all tainted by its suspicion of the legitimacy of the nation, modernity and tradition and, above all, by its misgiving about its own propriety.




Fathers and Sons in the Arab Middle East


Book Description

Drawing on insights from psychology, sociology, anthropology, religion, history, and literature, this book examines early and contemporary writings of male authors from across the Arab world to explore the traditional and evolving nature of father-son relationships in Arab families.




The Dreams


Book Description

In his final years, Egyptian Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz distilled his storyteller's art to its most essential level. Written with the compression and power of dreams, these poetic vignettes, originally collected in two books, The Dreams and Dreams of Departure, here combined in one volume for the first time. These stories telescope epic tales into tersely haunting miniatures. A man finds his neighborhood has turned into a circus, but his joy turns to anger when he cannot escape it. An obscure writer finally achieves fame-through the epitaph on his grave. A group of friends telling jokes in an alley face the murderous revenge of an ancient Egyptian queen. Figures from Mahfouz's past-women he loved, men who inspired him, even fictional characters from his own novels-float through tales dreamed by a mind too fertile ever to rest, even in sleep. Translated by Raymond Stock




Other Others


Book Description

In literary and cultural studies today, the term "the Other" appears to have largely lost its moorings in the primacy of the intersubjective encounter, focusing rather on the social construction of the Other. For Emmanuel Levinas, in contrast, the Other is precisely that which eludes construction and categorization. In a study that ranges from literature of ancient China, Greece, and Israel to modern Egypt, Italy, West Africa, and America, Steven Shankman tests Levinas's ideas by reading literary works from outside the Judeo-Christian orbit for figurations equivalent to Levinas's notion of the Other. He also places ethics at the center of intercultural—or, in his words, "transcultural"—comparative literature. In contemporary literary and cultural studies, it is often assumed that culture has the last word. However, as Levinas insists—and as Shankman argues throughout this book—it is ethics that is the "presupposition of all Culture," that is situated "before Culture."




The Modernization Process of Egypt and Turkey in Selected Novels of Naguip Mahfouz and Orhan Pamuk


Book Description

This study discusses the modernization process of Egypt and Turkey from the beginning of the 20th century through The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz and Cevdet Bey and Sons by Orhan Pamuk. These works of two Nobel Prize winning authors project the stories of three generations, reflecting the historical, social and cultural transformations Egypt and Turkey went through. In their generational novels, both, Mahfouz and Pamuk portray extended families that have close relationships which fade through time as each new generation moves away from the traditional lifestyles and tries to adopt a new way of life under the influences of the social and economic conditions of their countries. This book analyses the way each succeeding generation operates in the process of transition from conservatism to modernity in Egypt and Turkey by contextualizing book texts and shedding light on the modernization experiences of these two countries.