1st Edition

Bildungsroman and the Arab Novel Egyptian Intersections

By Maria Elena Paniconi Copyright 2023
304 Pages
by Routledge

304 Pages
by Routledge

304 Pages
by Routledge

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... Read more

Introduction  1. Building the Nation, Imagining the Youth in early 20th-century Egypt  2. The Way of the Egyptian Novel: Zaynab by Muhammad Husayn Haykal  3. National Allegory and Bildungsnarrative in ‘Awdat al-rūh (The Return of the Spirit) by Tawfīq al-Ḥakīm  4. A Personal, Feminist, Anti-Colonial Awakening: al-Bāb al-maftūḥ (The Open Door) by Laṭīfa al-Zayyāt  5. The Crisis-plot: Adīb (A Man of Letters) by Ṭāhā Ḥusayn and Qindīl Umm Hāshim (The Lamp of Umm Hashim) by Yaḥyā Ḥaqqī  6. The "Disillusionment Plot" in Najīb Maḥfūẓ and ‘Abd al-Ḥakīm Qāsim  7. Antiphrastic Bildung and Multiple Selves in the Avant-Garde Literary Movement  Epilogue  Bibliography

Biography

Maria Elena Paniconi is Associate Professor in Arabic Literature at the University of Macerata, Italy. Her research interests are the Arab Nahḍa and the Bildungsnarratives in Modern and Contemporary Arab world. She wrote about nahḍawī writers and genres in JAL and Oriente Moderno. She translated into Italian the 1935 novel Adīb by Tāhā Ḥusayn.