BOOK COVER; TITLE; COPYRIGHT; DEDICATION; CONTENTS; PREFACE; ACKNOWLEDGMENTS; NOTE ON TRANSLATION AND TRANSLITERATION; 1 A GENRE AT WAR: Literary form and historical agency; 2 TANGENTS OF IDENTITY: The poetics of space in the Egyptian novel; 3 DIVINING IDENTITIES: Religion and the Egyptian novel; 4 QUESTIONABLE SUBJECTS: Individuality, representation, and the Egyptian novel; NOTES; INDEX
Summary
This book explores the complex relationship between the novel and identity in modern Arab culture against a backdrop of contemporary Egypt. It uses the example of the Egyptian novel to interrogate the root causes - religious, social, political, and psychological - of the lingering identity crisis that has afflicted Arab culture for at least two centuries
