SOAS Research Online

A Free Database of the Latest Research by SOAS Academics and PhD Students

[skip to content]

Laachir, Karima (2019) 'The Literary World of the North African taghrība: Novelization, Locatedness and World Literature.' Journal of World Literature, 4 (2). pp. 188-214.

[img]
Preview
Text - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

Download (226kB) | Preview

Abstract

The novels by North African novelists Waciny Laredj, Majid Toubia and Abdelrahim Lahbibi that refashioned the traditional Arabic genre of the taghrība inspired by the medieval epic of Taghrība of Banū Hilāl, still a living oral tradition in the region, offer an interesting case-study of location in world literature. They circulate both within national (Algerian, Egyptian and Moroccan) literary systems and the pan-Arab literary field while maintaining a distinct aesthetic and political locality. In these novels, the literary life of the North African taghrība takes forms and meanings that are geographically and historically located and that are shaped by the positionality of the authors. This paper intervenes in the discussion on location in world literature from the perspective of Arabic novelistic traditions by showing that the pan-Arabic literary field itself is far from homogenous but is marked by a diversity of narrative styles and techniques that can be both local/localised and transregional at the same time. Therefore, we need to shift our understanding of world literature beyond macro-models of “world-system” that assume a universally shared set of literary values and tastes.

Item Type: Journal Article
Keywords: taghrība, North African novel, Arabic literature, Waciny Laredj, Majid Toubia, Abdelrahim Lahbibi
SOAS Departments & Centres: Departments and Subunits > School of Languages, Cultures & Linguistics
ISSN: 24056480
Copyright Statement: © Karima Laachir, 2019. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the prevailing CC-BY-NC-ND license at the time of publication https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
DOI (Digital Object Identifier): https://doi.org/10.1163/24056480-00402004
Date Deposited: 22 Feb 2019 15:23
URI: https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/id/eprint/30400
Funders: European Union

Altmetric Data

Statistics

Download activity - last 12 monthsShow export options
Downloads since deposit
6 month trend
241Downloads
6 month trend
195Hits
Accesses by country - last 12 monthsShow export options
Accesses by referrer - last 12 monthsShow export options

Repository staff only

Edit Item Edit Item