Bildungsroman and the Arab Novel: Egyptian Intersections

Through a close-reading of a corpus of novels featuring young protagonists in their path toward adulthood, the book shows how Bildungsroman impacted the formation of the Egyptian narrative. On a larger scale, the book helps the reader to understand the key role played by the coming of age novel in the definition and perception of modern Arab subjectivity.

Exploring the role of Bildungsroman in shaping the canonical Egyptian novel, the book discusses the case of Zaynab by Muhammad Husayn Haykal (1913) as an example of early Arab Bildungsnarrative. It focuses on Latifa Zayyat’s masterpiece The Open Door and the novels of the 90es Generation, offering a gender-based analysis of the Egyptian Bildungsroman. It provides insightful readings about the function of the novel in women’s re-negotiation of social boundaries. The study shows how the stories of youth present universal themes such as the thwarted quest for love, the struggle for personal fulfilment, the desire to achieve a cultural modernity often felt as ＂other than self＂.

The book is a journey in the Twentieth Century Egyptian Novel, seen through the lens of the transnational form of Bildungsroman. It is a key resource to students and academics interested in Arabic literature, comparative literature and cultural studies.

Maria Elena Paniconi is Associate Professor in Arabic Literature at the University of Macerata, Italy. Her research interests are the Arab Nahḍa and the Bildungsnarratives in Modern and Contemporary Arab world. She wrote about nahḍawī writers and genres in JAL and Oriente Moderno. She translated into Italian the 1935 novel Adīb by Tāhā Ḥusayn.