ARAB 434: Modern Arabic Literature in Translation

The Arab World has experienced intense political and economic upheaval during the past century, which has led to fundamental changes in social structures and relationships. Imaginative literature has been a key site for the exploration of questions and concerns surrounding these developments. In this course we will study fiction from several countries in the Arab world with a particular emphasis on recent works. The literature we will be studying has arisen out of various conflicts in the region as well as the lived experiences and dynamic changes to indigenous and cosmopolitan ways of life, but each work creates a world of its own. What strategies do writers use for this world-making? What “others” are addressed by these works, and how are they changed through acts of translation?  LA, BN.