Urban Space in Contemporary Egyptian Literature: Portraits of Cairo (Literatures and Cultures of the Islamic World)

Part ode, part academic treatise, this book traces the transformation of Cairo’s historic downtown from its spectacular beginning as a French inspired Belle Époque marvel to a site of contest and, more recently, to its role as a neo-bohemian public sphere. Using the work of several Egyptian novelists, this study explores the significance of this space to ideas of modernity, class consciousness, and the anti-colonial struggle. Drawing on urban studies scholarship, Arabic literary criticism, and cultural theory, this wide-ranging work argues that a re-examination of the historic city center in the face of globalization and the ongoing fragmentation of urban space is essential to understanding what it means to be Egyptian today.