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Edinburgh Studies in Modern Arabic Literature

Religion in the Egyptian Novel

By Christina Phillips

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£100.00

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About this book

Charts the struggle between religious and secular discourse in the Egyptian novel
  • Analyses religious themes in 18 Egyptian novels, drawing on a range of critical theories
  • First close study of the Coptic theme in the Arabic novel
  • Includes close readings of key works such as the Mahfouz’s trilogy, as well as important but overlooked works such Mahfouz’s Hikayat Haratna and ‘Asda al-Sirat al-Dhatiyya, and ‘Abd al-Hakim Qasim’s Al-Mahdi and Turaf Akhbar al-Akhira

This in-depth, original survey of religion in the modern Arabic novel traces the relationship from the genesis of the form in the early 20th century to the present. Phillips provides a thematic exploration of the push and pull between religion and secularism as it played out on the pages of the Egyptian novel. Through close readings of representative texts, the book reveals the manifold ways in which Islam, Christianity, Sufism, myth, ritual and intertext have engaged in modern Arabic literature and culture more broadly.

Reviews

This is one of the best books on modern Arabic novel written in English. The width of its scope, covering its trajectory from birth to the present, is matched by the depth and sensitivity of its insightful close reading of key texts. In its exploration of the novel’s dialectical interaction with religion, it sheds as much light on the course of its changing forms and textual strategies, as on the transmutations of Islam and Christianity in the perception of its writers and readers. It also uses diverse critical approaches, placing its critical contribution firmly in the current debates of modern critical theory from Delueze to Said, and from feminism to post-colonial and secular criticism. This will soon be an essential reading for the students of modern Arabic literature as well as those interested in the current affairs of the turbulent Arab world.
Table of contents

Part One1. Introduction: Religion and the Novel2. The Religious Other3. The Secular Scripture

Part Two4. Introduction: Religion, the Egyptian Novel, and the New Literary Sensibility5. Intertextual Dialogues6. The Coptic Theme7. Mystical Dimensions8. Feminist Perspectives

ConclusionBibliography

About the author

Christina Phillips

Christina Phillips is Senior Lecturer of Arabic Literature and Media at the University of Exeter.

More in this series

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