Zainab

Zainab PDF Author: Mohammed Hussein Haikal
Publisher: Darf Publishers Ltd.
ISBN: 1850772924
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
Zainab, a name which aptly reflects the beauty of this tale's protagonist is also the title of the first modern Egyptian novel written in native vernacular. Crafted in 1910 by a privileged member of society and a student at the time living in Paris, Mohammed Hussein Haikal later rose through the ranks of Egyptian politics and media. The writer, journalist and politician also holds a number of written works to his name, including The House of Revelation (1939) and Thus was I Created (1955). Haikal successfully humanises and contextualises Egypt's societal issues without too reproachful a voice. As the great poet, Ahmed Fouad Negm said, 'it is better to wake your child up through laughter, rather than shouting at him'. Haikal expresses his sympathies with the fellah of Egypt, who despite the apparent reverence with which they are looked upon by society are still obliged to bear extreme difficulties, which they do so with great dignity. Their suffering remains unchallenged as they are routinely exploited by their employers, the state, 'religious leaders' and cheated out of education which results in the demise of their mental and physical wellbeing. Illnesses may be treated as a metaphysical phenomenon, rather than with a trip to the doctor, whilst depression is treated as a headache. Zainab, a hardworking farmer girl, is to be married to a son of the landowner despite her love for another named Ibrahim. Haikal is highly critical of this traditional marriage practice, where young men and women are picked off by families and pushed together into marriage to suit the requirements of the parents over the needs of the young couple. This message is clear throughout the book but appears most starkly in an open letter from Haikal to the public, guised as a note written by the character Hamid to his own father. Hamid states, 'To this day I consider the institution of marriage defective, on account of the conditions that are attached to it. Indeed I believe a marriage which is not based on love and does not progress with love to be contemptible.' As Haikal wrote in his room in Paris he was undoubtedly influenced by his nostalgia, describing scenes in Egypt in a way that only an Egyptian could. He is a man who has succeeded in writing for the woman, and his critiques of society are logical and empathetic. Few are painted as evil in Zainab but the writer warns that as with most of society's ills, our failures are the consequence of apathy, silence and the desire to fulfil what is expected of us through convention, culture and our own ignorance.

Zainab

Zainab PDF Author: Mohammed Hussein Haikal
Publisher: Darf Publishers Ltd.
ISBN: 1850772924
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 239

Get Book Here

Book Description
Zainab, a name which aptly reflects the beauty of this tale's protagonist is also the title of the first modern Egyptian novel written in native vernacular. Crafted in 1910 by a privileged member of society and a student at the time living in Paris, Mohammed Hussein Haikal later rose through the ranks of Egyptian politics and media. The writer, journalist and politician also holds a number of written works to his name, including The House of Revelation (1939) and Thus was I Created (1955). Haikal successfully humanises and contextualises Egypt's societal issues without too reproachful a voice. As the great poet, Ahmed Fouad Negm said, 'it is better to wake your child up through laughter, rather than shouting at him'. Haikal expresses his sympathies with the fellah of Egypt, who despite the apparent reverence with which they are looked upon by society are still obliged to bear extreme difficulties, which they do so with great dignity. Their suffering remains unchallenged as they are routinely exploited by their employers, the state, 'religious leaders' and cheated out of education which results in the demise of their mental and physical wellbeing. Illnesses may be treated as a metaphysical phenomenon, rather than with a trip to the doctor, whilst depression is treated as a headache. Zainab, a hardworking farmer girl, is to be married to a son of the landowner despite her love for another named Ibrahim. Haikal is highly critical of this traditional marriage practice, where young men and women are picked off by families and pushed together into marriage to suit the requirements of the parents over the needs of the young couple. This message is clear throughout the book but appears most starkly in an open letter from Haikal to the public, guised as a note written by the character Hamid to his own father. Hamid states, 'To this day I consider the institution of marriage defective, on account of the conditions that are attached to it. Indeed I believe a marriage which is not based on love and does not progress with love to be contemptible.' As Haikal wrote in his room in Paris he was undoubtedly influenced by his nostalgia, describing scenes in Egypt in a way that only an Egyptian could. He is a man who has succeeded in writing for the woman, and his critiques of society are logical and empathetic. Few are painted as evil in Zainab but the writer warns that as with most of society's ills, our failures are the consequence of apathy, silence and the desire to fulfil what is expected of us through convention, culture and our own ignorance.

Mohammed Hussein Haikal's Zainab

Mohammed Hussein Haikal's Zainab PDF Author: Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal
Publisher: Hyperion Books
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description


The Experimental Arabic Novel

The Experimental Arabic Novel PDF Author: Stefan G. Meyer
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791447338
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Traces the development of the modern Arabic novel from the 1960s to the present.

Ordinary Egyptians

Ordinary Egyptians PDF Author: Ziad Fahmy
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804772126
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Examines how popular media and culture provided ordinary Egyptians with a framework to construct and negotiate a modern national identity.

Bildungsroman and the Arab Novel

Bildungsroman and the Arab Novel PDF Author: Maria Elena Paniconi
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1351357239
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
Through a close-reading of a corpus of novels featuring young protagonists in their path toward adulthood, the book shows how Bildungsroman impacted the formation of the Egyptian narrative. On a larger scale, the book helps the reader to understand the key role played by the coming of age novel in the definition and perception of modern Arab subjectivity. Exploring the role of Bildungsroman in shaping the canonical Egyptian novel, the book discusses the case of Zaynab by Muhammad Husayn Haykal (1913) as an example of early Arab Bildungsnarrative. It focuses on Latifa Zayyat’s masterpiece The Open Door and the novels of the 90es Generation, offering a gender-based analysis of the Egyptian Bildungsroman. It provides insightful readings about the function of the novel in women’s re-negotiation of social boundaries. The study shows how the stories of youth present universal themes such as the thwarted quest for love, the struggle for personal fulfilment, the desire to achieve a cultural modernity often felt as "other than self". The book is a journey in the Twentieth Century Egyptian Novel, seen through the lens of the transnational form of Bildungsroman. It is a key resource to students and academics interested in Arabic literature, comparative literature and cultural studies.

The Arabic Novel

The Arabic Novel PDF Author: Roger Allen
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815626411
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
This edition includes new material on the Arabic novel up to 1993. It is a survey of the Arabic novel and its development from its beginnings in the 19th century until today. It traces the origin, early cultivation and the mature period after World War II of the Arabic novel.

The Undergraduate's Companion to Arab Writers and Their Web Sites

The Undergraduate's Companion to Arab Writers and Their Web Sites PDF Author: Dona S. Straley
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313058881
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
This companion provides information on the lives and works of about 150 authors who write primarily in Arabic, covering the first known works of Arabic literature in the 5th and 6th centuries A.D. to the present day. While concentrating on literary authors, writers from the fields of history, geography, and philosophy are also represented. The individuals represented were chosen primarily from the Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature. Among the major authors are Najib Mahfuz, the 1988 Nobel laureate; Nawal Saadawi, the Egyptian physician who is the leading female literary author in the Arab world and the most frequently translated into English; Abu al-Ala' al-Ma'arri, the 11th century poet whose verses are taught to every Arab schoolchild; and Avicenna, the great physician and philosopher, transmitter and interpreter of Aristotle, whose work on medicine was long the standard not only in the Middle East but also (in Latin translation) in Europe. In addition, entries will be included for the anonymous romances so common in Arabic literature, such as The Arabian Nights, a cycle of stories perhaps even better known in the West than in the Arab world. Interest in the history and culture of the Arab world at U.S. universities has taken a quantum leap since the events of September 11, 2001. In this book, the author demonstrates that at least three major, distinct literary and cultural traditions are included within the fields of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies—Arabic, Persian, and Turkic. The Arabic tradition is the oldest, largest, and most widely dispersed. Undergraduate courses in Arabic literature and culture are now being taught at both lower- and upper-levels at many universities. Such courses are often used by undergraduates to fulfill basic educational requirements for their degrees. Students in such courses often have difficulty finding information on Arab writers, and this volume fills the void.

The New Cambridge History of Islam: Volume 5, The Islamic World in the Age of Western Dominance

The New Cambridge History of Islam: Volume 5, The Islamic World in the Age of Western Dominance PDF Author: Francis Robinson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316175782
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 945

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Book Description
Volume 5 of The New Cambridge History of Islam examines the history of Muslim societies from 1800 to the present. Francis Robinson, a leading historian of Islam, has brought together a team of scholars with a broad range of expertise to explore how Muslims responded to the challenges of Western conquest and domination across the last two-hundred years. As their articles reveal, the social, economic, political and historical circumstances which influenced these responses have, in many different parts of the world, empowered Muslim societies and encouraged transformation and religious revival. The volume offers a fascinating glimpse into the local dimensions of that revival and how regional connections have been forged. Synthesising the academic research of the past thirty years, as well as offering substantial guidance for further study, this book is the starting-point for all those who wish to have a serious understanding of modern Muslim societies.

Contesting Antiquity in Egypt

Contesting Antiquity in Egypt PDF Author: Donald Malcolm Reid
Publisher: American University in Cairo Press
ISBN: 1617979562
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 680

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Book Description
The history of the struggles for control over Egypt's antiquities, and their repercussions, during a period of intense national ferment The sensational discovery in 1922 of Tutankhamun’s tomb, close on the heels of Britain’s declaration of Egyptian independence, accelerated the growth in Egypt of both Egyptology as a formal discipline and of ‘pharaonism'—popular interest in ancient Egypt—as an inspiration in the struggle for full independence. Emphasizing the three decades from 1922 until Nasser’s revolution in 1952, this compelling follow-up to Whose Pharaohs? looks at the ways in which Egypt developed its own archaeologies—Islamic, Coptic, and Greco-Roman, as well as the more dominant ancient Egyptian. Each of these four archaeologies had given birth to, and grown up around, a major antiquities museum in Egypt. Later, Cairo, Alexandria, and Ain Shams universities joined in shaping these fields. Contesting Antiquity in Egypt brings all four disciplines, as well as the closely related history of tourism, together in a single engaging framework. Throughout this semi-colonial era, the British fought a prolonged rearguard action to retain control of the country while the French continued to dominate the Antiquities Service, as they had since 1858. Traditional accounts highlight the role of European and American archaeologists in discovering and interpreting Egypt’s long past. Donald Reid redresses the balance by also paying close attention to the lives and careers of often-neglected Egyptian specialists. He draws attention not only to the contests between westerners and Egyptians over the control of antiquities, but also to passionate debates among Egyptians themselves over pharaonism in relation to Islam and Arabism during a critical period of nascent nationalism. Drawing on rich archival and published sources, extensive interviews, and material objects ranging from statues and murals to photographs and postage stamps, this comprehensive study by one of the leading scholars in the field will make fascinating reading for scholars and students of Middle East history, archaeology, politics, and museum and heritage studies, as well as for the interested lay reader.

Women, Writing and the Iraqi Ba'thist State

Women, Writing and the Iraqi Ba'thist State PDF Author: Hawraa Al-Hassan
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474441777
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Explores discourses on gender and representations of women in modern Iraqi fiction. By exploring discourses on gender in both propaganda and high art fictional writings by Iraqis, this book offers an alternative narrative of the literary and cultural history of Iraq.