The Writer Sweating at His Desk: Labor and Literature in Fatī Ghānim's al-Jabal

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Debates about the role of literature in postcolonial Egypt took place within a broader discourse on the mobilization of labor and the creation of a national productive economy. Reading the archive of early issues of the pioneering journal Al-Ghad, this article shows that Egyptian progressive writers in the early 1950s strove to define themselves as workers and literature as a productive endeavor. The article then turns to Fatī Ghānim's 1957 novel al-Jabal, arguing that its depiction of a failed peasant reform project is a means of reflecting on the work of the writer and its productive ends. While nominally committed to a progressive ethos of productivity, the novel remains haunted by the specter of labor with no product, exertion that produces nothing, which endures as an alternative model for literary writing.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)322-348
Number of pages27
JournalJournal of Arabic Literature
Volume55
Issue number2-3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 Shir Alon.

Keywords

  • Al-Ghad
  • Fatī Ghānim
  • iltizām
  • labor
  • literature as work
  • Nasserism
  • national productivity

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