ID | 156627 |
Title Proper | Uses of geography in Youssef Ziedan’s Azazeel |
Language | ENG |
Author | Gomaa, Sally |
Summary / Abstract (Note) | : Youssef Ziedan’s controversial novel Azazeel follows an anonymous narrator’s journey from Upper Egypt to Aleppo during the first half of the fifth-century AD. This article argues that descriptions of landscape enable the narrator to articulate personal and historical crises otherwise censored or repressed. By incorporating geographical features into his identity, the narrator creates a poetic version of himself free from the hegemony of the dominant religious discourse. The search for a free, private space shapes the novel’s aesthetic as well as political concerns. Overall, Azazeel is an important novel because of its literary value, its denouncement of geopolitical definitions of God, and its ability to place the history of religious violence in Egypt within the global context |
`In' analytical Note | Arab Studies Quarterly Vol. 39, No.4; Fall 2017: p.957-972 |
Journal Source | Arab Studies Quarterly Vol: 39 No 4 |
Key Words | Geography ; Religious Violence ; Literary Criticism ; Arabic Novel ; Youssef Zieda ; Azazeel |