The Iraqi Novel: Key Writers, Key Texts
Fabio Caiani and Catherine Cobham
Abstract
This book provides a commentary on a neglected, but illuminating, area of postcolonial fiction, and makes a timely contribution to the understanding of wider Iraqi culture and society. It is designed to fill a gap in existing research in English on modern Arabic fiction, which has barely begun to address the work of Iraqi novelists. It first explores 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 qual ... More
This book provides a commentary on a neglected, but illuminating, area of postcolonial fiction, and makes a timely contribution to the understanding of wider Iraqi culture and society. It is designed to fill a gap in existing research in English on modern Arabic fiction, which has barely begun to address the work of Iraqi novelists. It first explores 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 (1921-1998), Gha’ib Tu‘ma Farman (1927-1990), 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 these writers’ works 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.
Keywords:
Iraqi novel,
Iraqi fiction,
postcolonial,
cultural history,
Nuri,
Farman,
al-Saqr,
al-Takarli
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2013 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780748641413 |
| Published to Edinburgh Scholarship Online: May 2014 |
DOI:10.3366/edinburgh/9780748641413.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Fabio Caiani, author
University of St. Andrews
Catherine Cobham, author
University of St. Andrews
More
Less
