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Edinburgh Studies in Modern Arabic Literature

The Iraqi NovelKey Writers, Key Texts

By Fabio Caiani and Catherine Cobham

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£100.00

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About this book

Studies a neglected area of postcolonial fiction, fostering a better understanding of Iraqi culture and society

  • Includes an original study of works by Abd al-Malik Nuri and of the Baghdad cultural scene in the 1940s and 50s
  • Pays particular attention to detailed textual analysis and the evaluation and comparison of the aesthetic and poetic qualities of the works considered
  • Analyses Iraqi writings from a postcolonial and comparative perspective
  • Studies the early pioneering works of Iraqi fiction

This exploration of the work of Iraqi novelists begins with the early pioneering works and then moves towards an outline of the vibrant Baghdad cultural scene during the 1940s and 1950s. It pays articular attention to detailed textual analysis and the evaluation and comparison of the aesthetic and poetic qualities of the key works of the four writers who form the central subject of the book: Abd al-Malik Nuri (1921–98), Gha’ib Tu‘ma Farman (1927–90), Mahdi Isa al-Saqr (1927–2006) and Fu’ad al-Takarli (1927–2008) – all of whom began to write in or around the pivotal decade of the 1950s.

It is in these writers’ works that Iraqi fiction came of age and reached artistic maturity. The best of them are among the most complex portrayals of the particularities of life in Iraq and the human condition in general to come out of the Arab world.

Reviews

A welcome analytical contribution to the understudied corpus of Iraqi fiction, which is bound to appeal not only to scholars of Arabic literature and literary analysis, but anyone interested in fiction, literary translation, and Iraqi culture.'
This book fills a significant gap in critical studies in English of Arabic Literature, being the first major book on the modern Iraqi novel. I have no doubt it will be read with pleasure and profit by all who have an interest in the literature and history of modern Iraq.
Table of contents

Preface

  1. Introduction: The Awakening Story
  2. Revolutionary Pioneer: 'Abd al-Malik Nuri in Six Stories
  3. Realism and Space in the First Iraqi Novel
  4. From Khamsat Aswat to al-Markab: 'Writing about the People of Iraq'
  5. The Other Shore: Dialogue and Difference in Mahdi 'Isa al-Saqr's al-Shati' al-thani
  6. Two Houses, Two Women: Iraq at War in Mahdi 'Isa al-Saqr's Novels
  7. Reading and Writing in al-Masarrat wa-'l-awja' by Fu'ad al-Takarli
  8. The Long Way Back: Possibilities for Survival and Renewal in al-Raj' al-ba'id by Fu'ad al-Takarli

Epilogue: Reflections on Iraqi Fiction, Influence and Exile, or the Life and Times of Yusuf Ibn Hilal

About the contributors

Fabio Caiani

Fabio Caiani teaches Arabic in the Department of Arabic of the University of St Andrews. His research focuses on modern Arabic fiction. His publications (in either English or Italian) include the monograph Contemporary Arab Fiction: Innovation from Rama to Yalu (Routledge: 2007) on the Post-Mahfuzian novel, and studies of Yusuf Idris, Edwar al-Kharrat and Elias Khoury.

Catherine Cobham

Catherine Cobham is a lecturer in Arabic language and literature at the University of St Andrews. She has published research on Yusuf Idris, Naguib Mahfouz, Edwar al-Kharrat, Abdelilah Hamdouchi and Hanan Al-Shaykh. She has also translated the works of Adonis, Naguib Mahfouz, Mahmoud Darwish, Hanan al-Shaykh and Fuad al-Takarli, amongst others.

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