| Description |
xii, 260 pages ; 25 cm. |
| Series |
Edinburgh studies in modern Arabic literature |
|
Edinburgh studies in modern Arabic literature.
|
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-251) and index. |
| Contents |
Introduction: Ouverture ---- Chapter One: Naguib Mahfouz: (En)chanting Justice --- Chapter Two: Tayeb Salih: The Returns of the Saint --- Chapter Three: Al-Masʹad?: Witnessing Immortality --- Chapter Four: The Survival of Gamal Al-Ghitany --- Chapter Five: Ibrahim Al-Koni: Writing and Sacrifice --- Chapter Six: Tahar Ouettar: The Saint and the Nightmare of History ---- Epilogue: Bahaa Taher, Solidarity and Idealism. |
| Summary |
Sufi characters -- saints, dervishes, wanderers -- occur regularly in modern Arabic literature. A select group of novelists interrogates Sufism as a system of thought and language. In the work of writers like Naguib Mahfouz, Gamal Al-Ghitany, Taher Ouettar, Ibrahim Al-Koni, Mahmud Al-Mas'adi and Tayeb Salih we see a strong intertextual relationship with the Sufi masters of the past, including Al-Hallaj, Ibn Arabi, Al-Niffari and Al-Suhrawardi. This relationship interrogates the limits of the creative self, individuality, rationality and all the possibilities offered by literature. In this dialogue with the mystical heritage, these novelists seek a way of preserving a self under siege from the overwhelming forces of oppression and reaction that characterised the late 20th and early 21st centuries. |
| Subject |
Sufism in literature.
|
|
Arabic prose literature.
|
|
Arabic prose literature. (OCoLC)fst00812549
|
|
Literature. (OCoLC)fst00999953
|
|
Sufism. (OCoLC)fst01137257
|
| ISBN |
0748641408 (hardcover) |
|
9780748641406 (hardcover) |
|
9780748695850 (paperback) |
|
0748695850 (paperback) |
|
