Khiṭaṭ al-Ghīṭānī: A Non-Official Topographical Chronicle of post-1952 Egypt

In a large part of his literary production, the Egyptian novelist Jamāl al-Ghīṭānī (1945-2015) aimed at rewriting the Arabic literary heritage in order to contest the Western novel hegemony and criticising Gamal Abdel Nasser (Jamāl ʿAbd al-Nāṣir) and Anwar Sadat’s (Anwar al-Sādāt) authoritarianism. In this study we will analyse his novel Khiṭaṭ al-Ghīṭānī (1981), in which the author narrates the police state and the free market economy applying the spatial organization of the Arab-Islamic gen...

Women’s Devotion to the Prophet as Reflected in the Literary Construction of a Non-Canonical Mawlid Narrative: Abū al-Ḥasan al-Bakrī’s Kitāb al-anwār

The Kitāb al-anwār attributed to Abū al-Ḥasan al-Bakrī continues to be, after many centuries, a mysterious narrative, and his alleged author even more enigmatic. The work narrates the creation and transmission of the prophetic light following the tropes of popular romance. In this article we will focus on one of its most peculiar features, that is, the detailed and emotional representation of female characters and the woman’s realm. We will argue that female empowerment – a typical ...

L’altro al-Ḥusayn: l’eroe di Karbalāʾ nella letteratura egiziana contemporanea

Al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī is a hero of the Islamic history who stands against the oppressor for the sake of justice. His tragic death has been a major theme in Shiʿi literature, but he is highly esteemed also in Sunni Islam, especially in Egypt. This paper aims to present the other – less known – al-Ḥusayn through the literary representations made by Egyptian writers of the 20th and 21st centuries, who have read this transhistorical figure according to the political and social env...

"The Sky Above the Ruhr Had to Turn Blue Again": Socialists and Environmental Issue (1970-1990)