Conspiracy in Modern Egyptian Literature

250 Pages·2018·0.997 MB·English

by  Benjamin Koerber

Conspiracy in Modern Egyptian Literature
Edinburgh Studies in Modern Arabic Literature
Series Editor: Rasheed El-Enany
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edinburghuniversitypress.com/series/smal
Conspiracy in Modern
Egyptian Literature
Benjamin Koerber
Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish
academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social
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© Benjamin Koerber, 2018
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
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ISBN 978 1 4744 1744 0 (hardback)
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ISBN 978 1 4744 1746 4 (epub)
The right of Benjamin Koerber to be identified as author of this work has been asserted
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Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).
Contents
Series Editor’s Foreword vi
Note on Transliteration and Translation viii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
1 Dramaturgies of Conspiracy: Bakathir, Idris and the July Regime 26
2 Naguib Surur: The Poetics and Politics of Niyāka 55
3 Sonallah Ibrahim’s al-Lajna: Between Critical Theory and
Conspiracy Theory 94
4 Gamal al-Ghitani’s Óikāyāt al-Khabīʾa: The Fitna of Sexual
Deviance 117
5 Paranoia in the Second Degree: Three Recent Novels 143
Epilogue 170
Appendix 174
Notes 195
Bibliography 219
Index 231
Series Editor’s Foreword
Edinburgh Studies in Modern Arabic Literature is a new and unique series
that will, it is hoped, fill in a glaring gap in scholarship in the field of
modern Arabic literature. Its dedication to Arabic literature in the modern
period (that is, from the nineteenth century onwards) is what makes it unique
among series undertaken by academic publishers in the English-speaking
world. Individual books on modern Arabic literature in general or aspects
of it have been and continue to be published sporadically. Series on Islamic
studies and Arab/Islamic thought and civilisation are not in short supply
either in the academic world, but these are far removed from the study of
Arabic literature qua literature, that is, imaginative, creative literature as we
understand the term when, for instance, we speak of English literature or
French literature. Even series labelled ‘Arabic/Middle Eastern Literature’
make no period distinction, extending their purview from the sixth century
to the present, and often including non-Arabic literatures of the region. This
series aims to redress the situation by focusing on the Arabic literature and
criticism of today, stretching its interest to the earliest beginnings of Arab
modernity in the nineteenth century.
The need for such a dedicated series, and generally for the redoubling of
scholarly endeavour in researching and introducing modern Arabic literature
to the Western reader, has never been stronger. Among activities and events
heightening public, let alone academic, interest in all things Arab, and not
least Arabic literature, are the significant growth in the last decades of the
translation of contemporary Arab authors from all genres, especially fiction,
into English; the higher profile of Arabic literature internationally since the
award of the Nobel Prize for Literature to Naguib Mahfouz in 1988; the
growing number of Arab authors living in the Western diaspora and writing
series editor’s foreword | vii
both in English and Arabic; the adoption of such authors and others by main-
stream, high-circulation publishers, as opposed to the academic publishers of
the past; the establishment of prestigious prizes, such as the International Prize
for Arabic Fiction (the Arabic Booker), run by the Man Booker Foundation,
which brings huge publicity to the shortlist and winner every year, as well as
translation contracts into English and other languages; and very recently the
events of the Arab Spring. It is therefore part of the ambition of this series
that it will increasingly address a wider reading public beyond its natural ter-
ritory of students and researchers in Arabic and world literature. Nor indeed
is the academic readership of the series expected to be confined to specialists
in literature in the light of the growing trend for interdisciplinarity, which
increasingly sees scholars crossing field boundaries in their research tools and
coming up with findings that equally cross discipline borders in their appeal.
This title represents a new venture in the study of modern Arabic literature,
and particularly but not exclusively the novel, in Egypt. Conspiracy and
paranoia, rife in the political arena, both in the political elite’s speak and in
popular discourse under first colonial and then dictatorial, post-i ndependence
regimes, has had its reflections over generations in literature too. But this
phenomenon has gone largely without study. Whether its treatment repre-
sents a literary ‘style’, a genre, or sub-genre is a matter for contention, but
what is incontestable is that paranoia represents a phenomenon that has run
through Egyptian literature over several generations of writers and political
periods without receiving scholarly attention; not until the monograph to
hand anyway.
The author has chosen a good representative sample of works spreading
over the best part of a century and a multiplicity of political eras, including
both canonical works, which have been much studied though not from this
specific angle, and works by less mainstream authors, reaching down to some
blogs in the post-January 2011 era of the Arab Spring.
Professor Rasheed El-Enany, Series Editor,
Emeritus Professor of Modern Arabic Literature,
University of Exeter
Note on Transliteration and Translation
The book follows the IJMES system for Arabic transliteration, with several
exceptions. Accepted English spellings are used for names of prominent
figures (Naguib Mafhouz, Gamal Abdel Nasser). For readability, names of
the major authors and characters under consideration have also been ren-
dered without diacritical marks. In all such cases, the full transliteration is
provided upon first mention in the text.
Transliteration of texts in Egyptian Colloquial Arabic follow the IJMES
system, with the addition of the dialect vowels /e/, /ē/, /o/, and /ō/.
All translations from the Arabic are mine unless otherwise noted.