Poetics and Politics of the Fantastic in the Novel Hātif al-maġīb, the Riḥla Towards the Sunset

In the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War, the Egyptian author Ǧamāl al-­Ġīṭānī expressed his anxieties for the failures of Arab politics in the novel Hātif al-­maġīb (The Call of the Sunset, 1991). In this travelogue, based on the rewriting of pre-­modern genres related to creative imagination, the author’s alter ego embarks on a visionary and full-­of-­wonders journey from Egypt to the sunset, which is, symbolically, Morocco and a metaphor for death. In this contribution, we will investigate the construction of the fantastic in the novel, in order to underscore the multiple meanings of the sunset motif, mainly inspired by the mythology of ancient Egypt. Our reading of the fantastic components will be informed by studies carried out by the Moroccan literary critic Šuʻayb Ḥalīfī in the field. It will turn out that the fantastic re-­combines the real, being a means to interpret human experience and the author’s inner concern with time and death.