0415332176.Routledge.Arab.Representation.of.Occident.East-.West.Encounters.in.Arabic.Fiction.May.2006.pdf

Arab Representations of

the Occident

This book explores Arab responses to Western culture and values as expressed

through works of fiction and non-fiction written by Arab authors during the

nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It constitutes an original addition to the

perennial East–West debate, and is particularly relevant to the current discussion

on Islam and the West.

Arab Representations of the Occident might be seen as the reverse study of

Edward Said’s famous Orientalism . If Orientalism, according to Said, provided

the conceptual framework, the intellectual justification for the appropriation of

the Orient through colonialism, ‘Occidentalism’ – if one may use this label to

indicate Arab conceptualisations of the West – tells a different story. It is a story,

not about the appropriation of the land of the West, but its very soul. And if

Orientalism was about the denigration, and the subjugation of the Oriental Other,

much of Occidentalism has been about the idealisation of the Western Other, the

desire to become the Other, or at least to become like the Other. This book – the

first book on the subject in English – explores this process through examining

representations of the West, or of the self and other in Arabic fictive and quasi-fictive

writing.

Rasheed El-Enany , Professor of Modern Arabic literature at the University of

Exeter, researches into all genres and aspects of modern Arabic literature: fiction,

drama, poetry, as well as literary criticism. He is interested particularly in the

study of literature as a system of thought with an attitude towards the

philosophical and socio-political issues of human life.

He has written extensively on the Arabic language’s leading novelist and Nobel

laureate, Naguib Mahfouz. His previous publications include: Naguib Mahfouz:

the Pursuit of Meaning (also published by Routledge) and a translation of

Mahfouz’s novel, Respected Sir .

Culture and Civilization in the Middle East

Series Editor: Ian R. Netton

University of Leeds

This series studies the Middle East through the twin foci of its diverse cultures

and civilisations. Comprising original monographs as well as scholarly surveys,

it covers topics in the fields of Middle Eastern literature, archaeology, law,

history, philosophy, science, folklore, art, architecture and language. While there

is a plurality of views, the series presents serious scholarship in a lucid and

stimulating fashion.

Arab Representations of

the Occident

East–West encounters in

Arabic fiction

Rasheed El-Enany

First published 2006

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s

collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,

mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter

invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any

information storage or retrieval system, without permission in

writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN10: 0–415–33217–6

ISBN13: 978–0–415–33217–0

Foreign culture is as necessary to the spirit of a nation as is foreign commerce to its

industries.

(Lebanese/American writer, Ameen Rihani, 1876–1940)

We came to Europe

To drink of the springs of civilisation;

We came looking for a northerly window;

We came to breathe in the air;

To know the colours of the sky;

We came running away from the whips of oppression;

We came to Europe

To rejoice in the freedom of expression;

To wash the dust off our bodies;

And to plant trees in the gardens of conscience.

(Syrian poet, Nizar Qabbani, 1923–98)

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