Part ode, part academic treatise, this book traces the transformation of Cairo’s historic downtown from its spectacular beginning as a French inspired Belle ?poque marvel to a site of contest and, more recently, to its role as a neo-bohemian public sphere. Using the work of several Egyptian novelists, this study explores the significance of this space to ideas of modernity, class consciousness, and the anti-colonial struggle. Drawing on urban studies scholarship, Arabic literary criticism, and cultural theory, this wide-ranging work argues that a re-examination of the historic city center in the face of globalization and the ongoing fragmentation of urban space is essential to understanding what it means to be Egyptian today.

Urban Space in Contemporary Egyptian Literature: Portraits of Cairo (Literatures and Cultures of the Islamic World) PDF

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