Description
Book SynopsisThe novel is a largely imported European genre, coming relatively late to the history of Arab letters. It should therefore perhaps come as no surprise that the first novel to have been written by an Arab was written in English (Ameen Rihani''s The Book of Khalid, 1911). However, subsequent years saw the flourishing of, first, Arabic novels, then the Francophone Arab novel. Only in the last two decades has the Anglophone Arab novel experienced a second coming, and it is this re-emergence of literary activity that is the focus of this collection.
Opening up the field of diasporic Anglo Arab literature to critical debate, the Companion presents a range of critical responses and pedagogical approaches to the Anglo Arab novel. It offers both classroom-friendly essays and critically sophisticated analyses, bringing together original critical studies of the major Anglo Arab novelists from established and emerging scholars in the field.
Table of ContentsNotes on the Contributors; Introduction: The Intellectual History and Contemporary Significance of the Arab Novel in English, Nouri Gana; Part I: Constellations: Modernity, Empire and Postcoloniality; 1. The Rise of the Arab American Novel: Ameen Rihani's The Book of Khalid, Wail S. Hassan; 2. Beyond Orientalism: Khalid, the Secular City, and the Transcultural Self, Geoffrey Nash; 3. The Incestuous (Post) Colonial: Soueif's Map of Love and the Second Birth of the Egyptian Novel in English, Shaden M. Tageldin; 4. Drinking, Gambling and Making Merry: Waguih Ghali's Search for Cosmopolitan Agency, Deborah A. Starr; 5. Mobile Belonging? The Global 'Given' in the Work of Etel Adnan, Mary N. Layoun; 6. Burning, Memory and Postcolonial Agency in Laila Lalami's Hope and other Dangerous Pursuits, Ahmed Idrissi Alami; 7. Zenga Zenga and Bunga Bunga: The Novels of Hisham Matar and a Critique of Gadhafi's Libya, Christopher Micklethwait; Part II: Force-fields: Ethnic Ties and Transnational Solidarities; 8. In Search of Andalusia: Reconfiguring Arabness in Diana Abu-Jaber's Crescent, Nouri Gana; 9. Europe and Its Others: The Novels of Jamal Mahjoub, Jopi Nyman; 10. Space, Embodiment, Identity and Resistance in the Novels of Fadia Faqir, Lindsey Moore; 11. The Arab Canadian Novel and the Rise of Rawi Hage, F. Elizabeth Dahab; 12. The Arab Australian Novel: Situating Diasporic and Multicultural Literature, Saadi Nikro; 13. Identity, Transformation and the Anglophone Arab Novel, Maysa Abou-Youssef Hayward; 14. Rabih Alameddine's I, the Divine: A Druze Novel as World Literature?, Michelle Hartman; Part III: Prospects/Challenges: Authority, Pedagogy and the Market Industry; 15. Invisible Ethnic: Mona Simpson and the Space of the Ethnic Literature Market, Mara Naaman; 16. The Challenges of Orientalism: Teaching about Islam and Masculinity in Leila Aboulela's The Translator, Brendan Smyth; 17. Teaching from Cover to Cover: Arab Women's Novels in the Classroom, Heather Hoyt; 18. Perils and Pitfalls of Marketing the Arab Novel in English, Samia Serageldin; Bibliography; Index.
