Cover; Contents; Preface ; 1. Fictional Genealogies ; 2. The God Abandons the Murderess: Or, Murder as Opposition? ; 3. In the Flickering Light of UMM Hāshim's Lamp ; 4. Of Noisy Trains and Grass Pillows ; 5. Doubling: The (Immigrant) Worker as (Exiled) Writer ; 6. Deserts of Memory ; 7. Hunting Whales and Elephants, (Re)Producing Narratives ; 8. In Other Words, In Other Worlds: In Place of a Conclusion ; Bibliography ; Index
If the modern Western novel is linked to the rise of a literate bourgeoisie with particular social values and narrative expectations, to what extent can that history of the novel be anticipated in non-Western contexts? In this bold, insightful work Mary Layoun investigates the development of literary practice in the Greek, Arabic, and Japanese cultures, which initially considered the novel a foreign genre, a cultural accoutrement of ""Western"" influence. Offering a textual and contextual analysis of six novels representing early twentieth-century and contemporary literary fiction in these
