Religion in the Egyptian Novel

Christina Phillips is Senior Lecturer of Arabic Literature and Media at the University of Exeter.

This is one of the best books on modern Arabic novel written in English. The width of its scope, covering its trajectory from birth to the present, is matched by the depth and sensitivity of its insightful close reading of key texts. In its exploration of the novel’s dialectical interaction with religion, it sheds as much light on the course of its changing forms and textual strategies, as on the transmutations of Islam and Christianity in the perception of its writers and readers. It also uses diverse critical approaches, placing its critical contribution firmly in the current debates of modern critical theory from Delueze to Said, and from feminism to post-colonial and secular criticism. This will soon be an essential reading for the students of modern Arabic literature as well as those interested in the current affairs of the turbulent Arab world.

• Part One1. Introduction: Religion and the Novel2. The Religious Other3. The Secular ScripturePart Two4. Introduction: Religion, the Egyptian Novel, and the New Literary Sensibility5. Intertextual Dialogues6. The Coptic Theme7. Mystical Dimensions8. Feminist PerspectivesConclusionBibliography