Earth, Milky Way: punctum books, 2024. 246 pages. ISBN-13: 978-1-68571-128-3. DOI: 10.53288/0476.1.00. OPEN-ACCESS e-book and $26.00 in print: paperbound/6.14 X 9.21 in.

Expressing the concerns of a substantial minority, the Nubian literature of Egypt is little known to readers of Arabic, and even less so in English. This pioneering collection of articles and interviews with prominent Nubian writers puts the spotlight on some of the major works within their literary and sociohistorical contexts for first time in English-language scholarship. The picture that emerges in the pages of this book is that of a vibrant regional literature that reveals some of the unresolved tensions of postcolonial Egypt.

~ Waïl S. Hassan, author of Arab Brazil: Fictions of Ternary Orientalism and The Oxford Handbook of Arab Novelistic Traditions

Voices from Nubia is timely and informative. It opens a window on the diverse and rich literature and culture of Nubian Egyptians. In theoretically sophisticated essays, the contributors unpack the polyphonic imaginary of Nubians in modern Egypt with their quest for identity within national borders and beyond. This original work illuminates the politics, poetics, and aesthetics of creative writers with hybrid consciousness.

~ Ferial Ghazoul, author of Arab Women Writing; A Critical Reference Guide, 1873-1999 and Edward Said and Critical Decolonization

Voices from Nubia is an essential addition to the landscape of Egyptian, Arabic, and postcolonial literary criticism. This collection gives us a broad and nuanced view of the questions and concerns motivating Nubian writers in and from Egypt, while also examining reception of Nubian literature by Egyptian readers and critics, and interrogating the category of ‘Nubian literature’ itself. There are also three in-depth interviews with prominent Nubian writers that give the writers space to theorize for themselves.

~ Marcia Lynx Qualey, founding editor of ArabLit

 

Voices from Nubia: Critical Essays on Contemporary Nubian Literature from Egypt

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Edited by Amal Mazhar, Faten I. Morsy, Mona M. Radwan

Contributors Rasha Abboudy, Khalid Abou el-Lail, Pervine Elrefaei, Hussein Hammouda, Amal Mazhar, Sherine F. Mazloum, Faten I. Morsy, Mona M. Radwan

Published: 08/01/2024

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The Nubians, the largest ethnic community in Egypt, saw their ancestral homelands disappear beneath the waters of the Nile from the dawn of the 20th century through to 1964. The massive displacement of this population has been the subject of numerous literary works by Nubian writers who seek to save their heritage from oblivion and to preserve their Nubian collective memory. Despite the renewal of socio-political interest in Nubia in post-2011 Egypt, the authors of Voices from Nubia, all non-Nubian Egyptians, claim that art in general and literature in particular remain the domain in which the problematics of what has been called the Nubian Question can be primarily vocalized. Only through a thorough reading and analysis of the literary output of Egyptian Nubians can the complexities of Nubia, its people, and culture can find full expression.

The rich literary heritage of contemporary Nubian literature allows for a multiplicity of critiques that makes possible a reading of this literature that crosses the borderlines between literature, history, geography, politics, gender, and ethnicity. The diversity of themes and tropes in Voices from Nubia reflects a hallmark of Nubian literary output which is generally marked by a common feeling of solidarity around the Nubian cause. The array of critical studies included in the volume’s eight chapters covers a multiplicity of approaches: cultural, postcolonial, ecofeminist, and critical race theory.

Voices from Nubia constitutes an attempt to go beyond the dichotomy between the activist Nubian writer who views the Nubian Question as a human rights issue and Arab-Egyptian nationalists who consider the discussion of Nubians as a distinct ethnic group or minority a threat to societal cohesion and national security. The editors conclude the book with interviews with three Egyptian Nubian writers belonging to different generations and expressing different positions with regards to the Nubian Question. It is thus hoped that this book will introduce the English-speaking reader to the rich tradition of contemporary Nubian literature from Egypt, written in Arabic. On the other hand, the book also forces the Egyptian-Arab reader to question some of the most cherished assumptions and ingrained ideas about the nature of culture, history, and identity. As such, Voices from Nubia has far-reaching implications for how we think about the diverse nature of our societies and nations.

About the Editors

Amal Mazhar is Professor Emeritus of Drama and Comparative Literature at Cairo University. Her main interests are Egyptian, British, and Irish drama, on which she has published numerous scholarly articles. She is also interested in translation from/into English/Arabic. She has translated into English two plays: Ahmed Etman’s Cleopatra Worships Peace and Mahmoud Diyab’s Gate to Conquest (Bab El Futuh). Mazhar has also translated Amitav Gosh’s In an Antique Land and Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease, as well as updated the translation of The Oxford Dictionary of the Theatre.

Faten I. Morsy is Professor of Comparative Literature at Ain Shams University in Cairo. She has published extensively on medieval literatures, cultural studies, postcolonial literatures, gender studies, and contemporary Arabic Literature. She has edited The Knotted Handkerchief: Essays on the Creative and Critical Works of Radwa Ashour. She is currently writing a book on “Arabic Literature as World Literature.” She has been on the advisory board of several journals and foundations, including Thaqafat.

Mona Radwan is Assistant Professor of English at Cairo University and specializes in the 20th-century novel and comparative literature, and she is the author of Aspects of War Neuroses in Pat Barker’s Regeneration Trilogy (Lambert, 2012). In 2015, she published her translation of The Revolt of the Young: Essays by Tawfiq al-Hakim with Syracuse University Press.

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