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Through a close-reading of a corpus of novels featuring young protagonists in their path toward adulthood, the book shows how Bildungsroman impacted the formation of the Egyptian narrative. On a larger scale, the book helps the reader to understand the key role played by the coming of age novel in the definition and perception of modern Arab subjectivity. Exploring the role of Bildungsroman in shaping the canonical Egyptian novel, the book discusses the case of Zaynab by Muhammad Husayn Haykal (1913) as an example of early Arab Bildungsnarrative. It focuses on Latifa Zayyat’s masterpiece The Open Door and the novels of the 90es Generation, offering a gender-based analysis of the Egyptian Bildungsroman. It provides insightful readings about the function of the novel in women’s re-negotiation of social boundaries. The study shows how the stories of youth present universal themes such as the thwarted quest for love, the struggle for personal fulfilment, the desire to achieve a cultural modernity often felt as "other than self". The book is a journey in the Twentieth Century Egyptian Novel, seen through the lens of the transnational form of Bildungsroman. It is a key resource to students and academics interested in Arabic literature, comparative literature and cultural studies.

The Bildungsroman has been one of the most significant genres in Western literature since the eighteenth century. This volume, comprised of eleven chapters by leading experts in the field, offers original insights into how the novel of formation developed a strong tradition in Germany, France, Britain, Russia, and the USA. In demonstrating how the genre has been adopted and adapted in innovative forms of fiction, this volume also shows how a genre traditionally associated with the young white man has been used to give expression to the formative experiences of women, LGBTQ people, and post-colonial populations. Exploring the genre's emergence and evolution in numerous countries and across more than two hundred years, this volume provides unprecedented historical and geographical coverage and demonstrates that the Bildungsroman has a rich heritage and a bright future.

This detailed analysis of the evolution of the Bildungsroman genre is unprecedented in its historical and geographical range.

Politicising World Literature: Egypt, Between Pedagogy and the Public engages with postcolonial and world literature approaches to examine the worldly imaginary of the novel genre and assert the political imperative to teaching world literature. How does canonising world literature relate to societal, political or academic reform? Alternating between close reading of texts and literary history, this monograph studies a corpus of novels and travelogues in English, Arabic, French, Czech and Italian to historicise Egypt’s literary relations with different parts of the world in both the modern period and the pre-modern period. In this rigorous study, May Hawas argues that protagonists, particularly in times of political crises, locate themselves as individuals with communal or political affiliations that supersede, if not actually resist, national affiliations.

Featuring essays by top scholars and interviews with acclaimed directors, this book examines Italian women's authorship in film and their visions of reality. The contributors use feminist film criticism in the analysis of their works and give direct voices to the artists who are constantly excluded by the conventional Italian film criticism.

This book is a timely and expansive volume on Murakami Haruki, arguably Japan's most high-profile contemporary writer. With contributions from prominent Murakami scholars, this book approaches the works of Murakami Haruki through interdisciplinary perspectives, discussing their significance and value through the lenses of history; geography; politics; gender and sexuality; translation; and literary influence and circulation. Together the chapters provide a multifaceted assessment on Murakami’s literary oeuvre in the last four decades, vouching for its continuous importance in understanding the world and Japan in contemporary times. The book also features exclusive material that includes the cultural critic Katō Norihiro’s final work on Murakami – his chapter here is one of the few works ever translated into English – to interviews with Murakami and discussions from his translators and editors, shedding light not only on Murakami’s works as literature but as products of cross-cultural exchanges. Murakami Haruki and Our Years of Pilgrimage will prove a valuable resource for students and scholars of Japanese studies, comparative and world literature, cultural studies, and beyond.