A nuanced understanding of literary imaginings of masculinity and femininity in the Egyptian novel. Gender studies in Arabic literature have 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. Foregrounding voices that have been marginalised alongside canonical works, she engages with new directions in the novel tradition.

About the Author
Hoda Elsadda is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cairo University, and co-founder and Chair of the Board of the Women and Memory Forum. Previously, she held a Chair in the Study of the Contemporary Arab World at the University of Manchester. She is a widely published scholar and activist and her work has focused on Arab and Muslim women's history and narratives, comparative literature and feminist issues.

Reviews
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



Book Information
ISBN 9780748639267
Author Hoda Elsadda
Format Hardback
Page Count 304
Imprint Edinburgh University Press
Publisher Edinburgh University Press
Weight(grams) 592g