1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910774596103321

Autore

Drumsta Emily

Titolo

Ways of Seeking : The Arabic Novel and the Poetics of Investigation / / Emily Drumsta

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, CA : , : University of California Press, , [2024]

©2024

ISBN

0-520-39020-2

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (240 p.)

Collana

Islamic Humanities ; ; 6

Soggetti

Arabic fiction - 20th century - History and criticism

Arabic poetry - 20th century - History and criticism

Detective and mystery stories, Arabic - 20th century - Influence

Modernism (Literature) - Arab countries - 20th century

LITERARY CRITICISM / Middle Eastern

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Notes on Transliteration, Translation, and Abbreviations -- 1 The Detective as Conscript -- 2 Murder on the ʿIzbah -- 3 Bureau of Missing Persons -- 4 Effacing the Author, or the Detective as Medium -- 5 Epic Fails -- Epilogue: Monstrous Omniscience -- Acknowledgements -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. In Ways of Seeking, Emily Drumsta traces the influence of detective fiction on the twentieth-century Arabic novel. Theorizing a "poetics of investigation," she shows how these novels, far from staging awe-inspiring feats of logical deduction, mock the truth-seeking practices on which modern exercises of colonial and national power are often premised. Their narratives return to the archives of Arabic folklore, Islamic piety, and mysticism to explore less coercive ways of knowing, seeing, and seeking. Drumsta argues that scholars of the Middle East neglect the literary at their peril, overlooking key critiques of colonialism from the intellectuals who shaped and responded through fiction to the transformations of



modernity. This book ultimately tells a different story about the novel's place in the constellation of Arab modernism, modeling an innovative method of open-ended inquiry based on the literary texts themselves.