Gender, Nation, and the Arabic Novel - (Edinburgh Studies in Modern Arabic Literature) by Hoda Elsadda (Paperback)

About the Book

Provides a nuanced understanding of literary imaginings of masculinity and femininity in the context of the 'national' canon of Egypt.

Book Synopsis

Gender studies in Arabic literature has become equated with women's writing, leaving aside the possibility of a radical rethinking of the Arabic literary canon and Arab cultural history. While the 'woman question' in the Arabic novel has received considerable attention, the 'male question' has gone largely unnoticed. Now, Hoda Elsadda bucks that trend to give us a nuanced understanding of literary imaginings of masculinity and femininity in the Egyptian novel. Foregrounding voices that have been marginalised alongside canonical works, she engages with new directions in the novel tradition.

Review Quotes

Elsadda brilliantly upends standing understandings of the Arabic novel. Nuanced and incisive, she dissects over a century of Egyptian Arabic novels, demonstrating that the liberal national elite's gendered imaginations of the nation shaped the literary canon. She convincingly argues that national political projects must imagine themselves through cultural production and that both are systematically shot through with gendered constructions of power.--Suad Joseph, Professor of Anthropology and Women and Gender Studies, University of California, Davis

About the Author

Hoda Elsadda is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the Cairo University