-
Making Ordinary: Recuperating the Everyday in Post-2005 Beirut Novels
- Author(s):
- Ghenwa Hayek (see profile)
- Date:
- 2017
- Subject(s):
- Arabic literature, Literature, Modern, Middle East, Area studies
- Item Type:
- Article
- Tag(s):
- Modern Arabic literature, 21st-century postcolonial literature, Middle Eastern studies, Literature and visual culture of the Middle East, Urban studies
- Permanent URL:
- http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6T83G
- Abstract:
- I argue that young Lebanese novelists like Sahar Mandour and Hilal Chouman mobilize the ordinary as a way to 'write out' of the literary legacy of war and trauma writing that have characterized Lebanese fiction, without denying or suppressing Lebanon's violent past. I go on to argue that this discursive move of ‘making ordinary’ allows these writers to focus on pressing contemporary issues, such as a rising sense of economic and urban precarity in Beirut. In doing so, I bring the literary into conversation with the sociopolitical and the urban. I also make the case that this ‘descent into the ordinary’ compels us, as readers, towards a more nuanced understanding of such interventions by Lebanese youth into the multiple temporalities and shifting landscapes of Lebanon’s postwar period.
- Metadata:
- xml
- Published as:
- Journal article
- Status:
- Published
- Last Updated:
- 6 years ago
- License:
- All Rights Reserved
- Share this:
Downloads
Item Name: 
g.hayek_ordinarybeirut_asj.pdfDownload View in browser Activity: Downloads: 250
An online community for ASEEES members