The Iraqi Novel: Key Writers, Key Texts

ISBN-13: 9780748641413 / Angielski / Twarda / 2013 / 280 str.

Fabio Caiani;Catherine Cobham

Opis

Studies a neglected area of postcolonial fiction, fostering a better understanding of Iraqi culture and society
This exploration of the work of Iraqi novelists begins with the early pioneering works and then moves towards an outline of the vibrant Baghdad cultural scene during the 1940s and 1950s. Particular attention is paid to detailed textual analysis and the evaluation and comparison of the aesthetic and poetic qualities of the key works of the four writers who form the central subject of the book -- Abd al-Malik Nuri (1921-98), Gha'ib Tu'ma Farman (1927-90), Mahdi Isa al-Saqr (1927-2006) and Fu'ad al-Takarli (1927-2008) -- all of whom began to write in or around the pivotal decade of the 1950s.
It is in these writers' works that Iraqi fiction came of age and reached artistic maturity. The best of them are among the most complex portrayals of the particularities of life in Iraq and the human condition in general to come out of the Arab world.

Spis treści

Acknowledgements; Preface; 1 Introduction: The Awakening Story; 2 Revolutionary Pioneer: 'Abd al-Malik Nuri in Six Stories; 3 Realism and Space in the First Iraqi Novel; 4 From Khamsat Aswat to al-Markab: 'Writing about the People of Iraq'; 5 The Other Shore: Dialogue and Difference in Mahdi 'Isa al-Saqr's al-Shati' al-thani; 6 Two Houses, Two Women: Iraq at War in Mahdi 'Isa al-Saqr's Novels; 7 Reading and Writing in al-Masarrat wa-'l-awja' by Fu'ad al-Takarli; 8 The Long Way Back: Possibilities for Survival and Renewal in al-Raj' al-ba'id by Fu'ad al-Takarli; Epilogue: Reflections on Iraqi Fiction, Influence and Exile, or the Life and Times of Yusuf Ibn Hilal.