People's Democratic Republic of Algeria Ministry of Higher Education

People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria

Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research

Larbi Ben M’hidi University-Oum El Bouaghi

Faculty of Letters and Languages

Department of English

Decentering Western Postmodernism:

Arabic Postmodern Trajectories in Ahlam Mosteghanemi’s Nessyane.com

A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master in Anglo-American Studies.

by: ANNAB Fadwa

Supervisor: ACHIRI Samya

Examiner: AaiD Salah Eddine

2014-2015

Candidate Declaration Form

I, ANNAB Fadwa

Candidate of Master at the Department of English, Larbi Ben M‘hidi University, do hereby declare that the dissertation entitled: Decentering Western Postmodernism: Arabic Postmodern Trajectories in Ahlam Mosteghanemi‘s Nessyane.com. in partial fulfillment of MA Degree in Anglo-American Studies is my own original work, and it has not previously, in its entirety or in part, been submitted at any university.

Abstract

Arabic literature has emerged amazingly in the last few decades. It has crossed the lines of traditional representations. However, it is still detached from the universal literary movements.

More recently, Arabic works have been excluded from postmodernism as a movement despite that the latter has agitated every part of this world. This dissertation examines the existence of postmodernist entities in the work of the Algerian writer Ahlam Mosteghanemi Nessyane.com

[Forgetting.com] (2009). This work is consciously chosen because it seems to celebrate the same western postmodernist literary techniques. The major objective behind this study is to investigate the existence of an Arabic postmodernist literature. It also aims to prove that

Arabic Literature is able to create delightful works which carry excellence at both levels: the local and the universal. After unveiling the outstanding properties of contemporary Arabic literature, the major target would be to provoke the desire for more researches about Arabic literature. In order to accomplish the previously listed points, this dissertation will be divided into three chapters. The first one is a theoretical base about postmodernism in general, including the Arabic one. The second one explores the literary postmodernist techniques in

Nessyane.com. The final part will throw light on the relationship between politics and literature in the late Arabic literature in an attempt to denote the results of such tight relevance.

In the final analysis, this dissertation comes to develop a notion that the politically motivational concepts which surround the Arabic literature have eventually pushed the Arabic individual to appeal revolution and insurgency. Résumé

La littérature arabe est marquée par une large progression ces dernières années, lorsqu‘elle a dépassé les styles traditionnels d‘écrire un texte littéraire. Mais cela n‘empêche pas qu‘elle n‘a pas encore atteint le niveau international, car elle est encore hors ces grands mouvements littéraires qui ont touché tous les parties du monde, comme le mouvement ―postmodernisme‖.

Cette thèse repose sur le produit écrit ― Nessyane.com‖ de la femme écrivain Ahlam

Mosteghanemi, comme un exemple pour détecter les lignes communes de ce mouvement en littérature arabe, nous avons basé sur ce travail parce qu‘il contient quelques techniques propres a ce dernier, notre modeste travail vise énormément à confirmer la présence du mouvement du postmoderne dans la littérature arabe ainsi que le déploiement que cette dernière a les capacités de prouver et produire des œuvres de qualité. Mais l‘objectif primordial est d‘encourager les gens à traiter les modernes travaux arabes d‘une manière plus large. Pour réaliser les objectifs déjà cités nous avons divisé notre thèse en trois chapitres, le premier est consacré pour la présentation d‘une étude théorique à propos du mouvement

«postmoderne» et ses particularités. Pour le deuxième représente une étude pratique concernant l‘œuvre ― Nessyane.com‖. À-propos du troisième chapitre nous avons mis l‘accent sur la relation exit entre la littérature et la politique en tentant de mentionner les résultats de ce chevauchement.

A la fin, cette étude nous amène à une conclusion que le mouvement

―postmodernisme‖ avait un grand impact dans la littérature moderne arabe, ainsi que les profonds concepts politiques dans ces œuvres a une grande influence à propos du lecteur arabe

Qui a répondu avec la rébellion et de la révolution. Dedication:

To my Father’s soul Acknowledgment:

I Thank Allah for giving me the perseverance and determination to continue doing this project.

I would like also to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Achiri Samya for

the continuous support, for her patience, motivation and immense knowledge.

My deepest gratitude goes to my family for supporting me in every possible way

throughout this journey.

I would like also to thank my friends for offering help whenever needed.

THANK YOU ALL. Table of Contents:

Abstract

Résumé

صـخـلم

Dedication……………………………………………………………………………………...i

Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………....ii

Table of Contents….……………………………………………………………………….....iii

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………1

Chapter One: Postmodernism beyond Euro-American Boundaries ………………………….4

I- Conceptualizing Western Postmodernism: ...... 4

II- Questioning Arabic Postmodernism: ...... 16

Chapter Two: Exploring Postmodernist Literary Aspects in Nessyane.com…………………30

Chapter Three: Remembering the Other Kinds of Despotism………………………………55

General Conclusions………………………………………………………………………….76

Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………….80

Appendices……………………………………………………………………………………83

Introduction:

Literature, like all arts, is a beautiful fiddle around the ideals and fantasies of life. It has the power to move smoothly between imagination and truth. Social progress, historical struggles and human pitfalls are all pictured in literature. Each literary period holds great concepts. Literary texts mingle the stiff with the soft, sweetness with bitterness. And this creates that charming complexity of literature.

Among all those literary periods, postmodernism is probably the most debatable movement in contemporary history. Despite the multiplicity of works surrounding this issue, still there is a perplexing halo that prevents the existence of a high visibility. It is a wide movement that hunted all aspects and disciplines. Literature, art, architecture have all experienced certain characteristics of the phenomenon.

The massiveness of postmodernism as a movement is unlimited. However, Arabic literature and arts do not really appear to take a good part in the postmodernist discussions.

The previous studies did not count the Arab world to be engaged in such phenomenon.

Consequently, this issue is not sufficiently discussed. There exist several studies which project

Arabic works through a postmodernist light, yet there is no recognizable frame for an Arabic postmodernism.

This dissertation will provoke the curiosity to acknowledge the importance of national literature. To put it another way, it will emphasize the ability of Arabic literature and writers in coping with the versatility of the universal literature. This dissertation will also stand as a basic grounding for the late researches which seek to investigate postmodernism in Arabic 1

literature. Further, it will lead future researchers to establish a clear image about postmodernism in general.

This dissertation will seek to interrogate the existence of postmodernist traits in Arabic arts, with a special focus on literature. It will argue that postmodernism is not exclusively limited to America or Europe. In light of these issues, this thesis will uncover the postmodernist literary tendencies in the work of Ahlam Mosteghanemi Nessyane.com in an attempt to detach postmodernism from its western context.

Nessyane.com carries numerous postmodernist techniques and themes. It profoundlycelebrates the chaos of postmodernism as a literary movement. The writer in this book shows a great capacity in creating a typical postmodernist work. The writer is not limited by the stereotypical frame of western postmodernist traits; she creatively balances between a universal movement and local needs. The book will serve the aims of the thesis as to prove the existence of such movement in Arabic literature and to shed light on the glamorous status of the Arabic writers.

As it is implied by the title, this thesis depends on a postmodernist approach to examine one of the recent works of Ahlam Musteghanemi Nessyane.com in order to elicit the correspondence between the techniques and themes she depends on, and those of western postmodernist paradigm. This analysis is intended in the first place to oppose the western elimination of works outside America to be considered as postmodernist from the one hand, and to prove the efficiency of contemporary Arabic literature from the other hand.

This dissertation also uses a descriptive approach along with an argumentative one to exhibit a new area in Arabic literature which is ―postmodernism‖ and to display the personal 2

input added by Arab writers to this movement. The importance of this study lies in its duality; it adds to the western studies concerning postmodernism, and it proclaims the Arabic print in improving such delightful phenomenon.

To achieve the aims and the perspectives outlined before, this dissertation will be divided into three chapters. The first chapter is entitled ―Postmodernism beyond Euro-

American Boundaries‖. It is divided into two sections: the first one conceptualizes the historical background surrounding the emergence of postmodernism. More specifically, it gives a reliable context about western postmodernist literature. The second section sets the scenery behind the emergence of Arabic postmodernism by investigating common postmodernist characteristics between several neoteric Arabic writings and their counterparts in America.

After giving a theoretical context in the first chapter, the second chapter in this dissertation is named ―Exploring Postmodernist Literary Aspects in Nessyane.com‖. The folds of this chapter testify the entity of postmodernist properties in the work of Ahlam

Mosteghanemi Nessyane.com. This analysis shows how this writer has kept up with postmodernism as a universal movement. It also aims at re-considering the notion that

Mosteghanemi is pure feminist or postcolonial writer.

The third chapter serves as a supplement to the second chapter. It is entitled ―Remembering the Other kinds of Despotism‖. This chapter tries to find out the reasons behind the political references in the book of Nessyane.com. This analytical study looks for the stimulations behind the political trajectories in this work and to anticipate the influence of such reference.

The chapter will also include some examples of the late Arabic literature which favors political themes in order to see the effect of this movement.

In essence, this dissertation will help to develop a critical thinking about postmodernism in general. It will also motivate the readers to make reasoned judgments about

Arabic Literature and its unsolved problems. Hopefully, this unpretentious work will contribute to the field of research.

Chapter One:

Postmodernism beyond Euro-American Boundaries:

The term Postmodernism, which has appeared mainly in the late twentieth century, has been enormously used in a variety of disciplines. Readers have come across this term in fields such as architecture, art, and literature. The Arabic world however is not quite acquainted with this term despite the fact that there exist several postmodernist characteristics in Arabic theater, art, and literature.

With that being said, this chapter will serve as a theoretical base for the other chapters.

It is divided into two sections. The first section is devoted to introduce the term postmodernism in its western context while the second one aims at introducing Arabic postmodernism. In brief, this chapter questions the following points: What are the origins of the postmodernism? Does Arabic Postmodernism exist? What differentiates the western postmodernism from that of the Arabic world?

I- Conceptualizing Western Postmodernism:

Postmodernism has always been a point of fierce discussions. Scholars question the terminology, the nature of the movement, the period, and the characteristics. The ambiguity which surrounds the term leaves no space for the existence of basic consensus upon a clear definition. In fact, nothing about postmodernism is absolute and no clear cut frame is given to this ‗phenomenon‘. It would have been easier to say that postmodernism simply refers to the present time with all its simplicities and conflicts, but the case is just more perplexed than that.

Linda Hutcheon argues that postmodernism cannot be defined, but rather it may just be theorized. Postmodernism, for her, is problematic by reason of it carries no definiteness:

―Postmodernism is a contradictory phenomenon, one that uses and abuses, installs and then subverts, the very concepts it challenges—be it in architecture, literature, painting, sculpture, film, video, TV, music, philosophy, aesthetic theory, psychoanalysis, linguistics, or

(1) historiography‖. This definition offered by Hutcheon is provocative, yet it supplies a partial and limited view of postmodernism.

While Hutcheon defines postmodernism in terms of contradiction, Morawski believes that postmodernism is a period of silliness and absurdity for it is ―deprived of ethos and (2) suffers from impaired morality‖. Morawski here sees that postmodernism is a period where seriousness and classic ideologies have been replaced by cursory attitudes. He defines it as the moment when morality and ethics are lost.

The relative validity of the presented definitions has caused some critics to revolt against the term as well as the movement in general. McHale seems to be annoyed by the idea of postmodernism and its inefficiency. He palpably criticizes postmodernism by appealing that: ―Postmodernist"? Nothing about this term is unproblematic; nothing about it is entirely satisfactory. It is even clear who deserves the credit— or the blame—for coining it in the first

(3) place‖. These intense words by McHale outstretch the complexity and the opacity surrounding postmodernism as a term and as a movement.

The multiplicity of interpretations comes also as a result of other elements such as development and creativity which come at the heart of postmodernism. The latter has ―shown (4) an extraordinary capacity to renew itself in the conflagration of its demise‖. Postmodernism

is a progressive era which is not limited chronologically or artistically.

The term postmodernism itself does not offer a facile resolution. It is ambiguous and intricate. The prefix ‗post‘ indicates that it is a posterior complement to another period which is modernism. In this case, ―the term postmodernism is not only awkward; it is also oedipal, and like a rebellious but impotent adolescent, it cannot separate itself completely from its parent. It can not invent for itself a new name like Baroque, Rococo, Romantic, Symbolist,

(5) Futurist, Cubist, Dadaist, Surrealist, Constructivist, Vortices, and so on‖.

Despite the complexities related to postmodernism, still there is a lot to figure out about this phenomenon. As a basic attempt to introduce postmodernism, one might say that it is a late-twentieth-century movement in the arts, architecture, and literature. Certain features do distinguish postmodernism from other movements like that of modernism. Postmodernism resists ethics, politics and rationality. Aside from this, the movement also calls for mini- narratives and the collapse of hierarchical distinction between high and low culture.

Unlike modernists, postmodernists celebrate those devastating, problematic conflicts because looking for answers does not present a problem anymore. ‗Disbelief‘ acts as a logo for this period owing the fact that the old conventions represent a place of doubt and adulteration. In addition, Postmodernism paradoxically challenges history. On the one hand, it yearns for historical norms, and on the other hand, it condemns its fables. Hutcheon states:

It [postmodernism] is a critical revisiting, an ironic dialogue with the past of

both art and society … what precisely, though, is being challenged by

postmodernism? First of all, institutions have come under scrutiny: from the

media to the university, from museums to theaters, much postmodern dance,

for instance, contests theatrical space by moving out into the street. (4-9)

It is largely assumed that the first postmodern premises have appeared in North

America, since it is known for being the land of artistry, innovation, oddness and modernity;

however, Perry Anderson debates that the origins of modernism along with postmodernism trace back to a Hispanic American origin:

We owe the coinage of modernism as an aesthetic movement to a

Nicaraguan Poet Ruben Dario‘s initiation in 1980 … for declaration of

cultural independence from Spain … Where in English the notion of

modernism scarcely entered general usage before mid-century, in Spanish it

was canonical a generation earlier … So too the idea of postmodernism first

surfaced in the Hispanic inter-world of the 1930 a generation before its

appearance in England or America … Federico de Onis who struck off the

term postmodernismo. He used it to describe a conservative reflux with

(6) modernism itself.

Be that as it may, but the origin of a certain movement is not taken by the coinage and invention of terminologies, rather it should be measured by the criteria which help in the refinement of that movement, that is to say the origin is where something grows not where it appears. Therefore, it is more appropriate to say that postmodernism has flourished in four different areas: Southern Europe (Italy and Spain), Western Europe (Ireland and England),

Japan and the United States.

Postmodernism, as a movement, has come to light in architecture around the years of

1960 and 1970. The first designs of this period have set the basic properties for the movement as a whole. Architects have competed to construct the strangest buildings using neoteric shapes. The postmodern buildings are massively colourful. They surpass the linear shapes of modernism. The singularity of postmodern architecture lies in its ability to juxtapose the traditional shapes with the new ones.

The Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada (1912) presents the first plenaryimage concerning postmodern architecture. The building is made up of two totally different shapes: one that is very modern attached to a very old traditional side. The Sony

Building in New York City (1984), which is designed by Philip Johnson, takes the form of a skyscraper, but it holds a traditional pediment on the top. Another serving example when speaking about the reference to the old shapes of building would be the Museum of the

Shenandoah Valley in Virginia (2005) by Michael Graves. The buildings appropriate the old modes of architecture to originate modern ones. However, unlike literature, architecture transports to history in order to show interest and nostalgia not to mock it.

Postmodernist architecture outpaces the boundaries of America. Several countries like:

Japan, Italy and Spain have established shocking buildings. In 1974, Paolo Portoghesi has designed The Mosque of Rome in Italy. Porteghesi, through depending on hybridity, he has combined two typical styles: one resembles the stereotypical shape of mosques with some exemplary forms of Christian churches. The design is not a coincidence; it is a thoughtful view of religious dialogue and harmonized relations.

Architecture has developed thoroughly after the years following 1980. Architects have dropped off their vision of referring to the past. The new shapes seem to be more futuristic and fragmented, chaotic but controlled, and highly unpredictable. In Japan, architects like Arata Isozaki have particularized a fresh spirit to postmodern architecture when he has designed The Art tower in Mito Japan (1989). The latter has been shortly pursued by similar buildings in the United States and South Africa like Seattle Central Library (2004) and

Everard Read Gallery in Johannesburg. This has caused some critics to conclude that

(7) thisarchitecture is a deconstructive one. The latter is different from that of modernism and

postmodernism. In brief, postmodernist architecture is not any less intricate than the movement as a whole. In fact, it is the bedrock reason for conceptualizing the very eminent particularities of the era. It has given the space for other disciplines to match its singularity.

Postmodernist architecture is contradictory, mysterious and innovative.

Postmodernist art was not less dramatic and complicated than architecture. Artists have gone too far with their imagination. It is humanistic; it represents the outlet for human experiences, feelings, complexities, pain, oppression and melancholy. Additionally, postmodernist art is close to metafiction for it blends reality with imagination. Accordingly,

(8) the paintings are surrealist. Most of them focus on faces as a way to express humanism and individualistic attitude.

Postmodernist art is meant to be open for many interpretations; thus, it stimulates curiosity and the desire to puzzle out its mysteries. From 1960 and on, art has started to take a new detour. The graffiti art has been strongly popular in the sixties. Artists have used public spaces to draw and to write expressive pictures which have been usually intended to convey political and economic messages, or to confirm religious and racial identities. Walls have become an alternative for museums and galleries. This reinforces the revolting attitude against the conventions of the past.

The ironic spirit is certainly present in postmodernist art since history, for them, presents a falsified picture. For instance, Descartes declaration ‗I think therefore I am‘ was replaced by an ironic statement ‗I shop therefore I am‘. This statement may seem to carry trivial thoughts, yet it decisively acts as a connotation for bigger issues. It reprimands the insipidity of the postmodern world which is bombarded by superficial reasoning. This statement also explores the dominance of the capitalist ideologies after the Second World War.

(9)

The technique of collage in postmodernist art takes a very large space. Artists have tried to collate small, detailed forms in order to create a whole image. This is just another method to express the fragmented world they have witnessed after WWII. Playing with shapes

(10) was highly favorable. Kusama Yajoi , the Japanese artist, works with colors, shapes and forms. This has led to a maximalist movement which is a prominent feature of postmodernist literature. Yajoi‘s works do not criticize or portray any of after war returns, rather they beautify reality by expressing fertility.

Postmodernist art is not entirely rose-coloured and bullish, some paintings and (11) sculptures typify exactly the bloodiest century in the human history. Ryoko Suzuki has chosen to depict the dark side of the era. Her paintings as well as her photographs distort the human image. They negatively portray the human body, and they stimulate disgust and loathsomeness.

The postmodern view has affected film industry and cinema in general. Before the

1960s, almost all movies have been intended for family audience. Romance and daily life have been very common themes alongside the culturally known scenarios. However, this has changed by the years following 1970. Being affected by the post-war era and developments in the other cultural aspects, cinema has abandoned the traditional stories to present some bloody, scientific, horror movies. These movies show human fears and obsessions and display real life intensity matched with some fanciful logic.

Characters are chosen to be psycho, creepy and struggling with considerable mental disorders. Violence, murder, and oppression have formed the main themes in this period.

Films peppered with darkness, isolation, aliens, suspense and surprise have been the most popular and gained massive success. In 1973, The Exorcist has revolutionized American

cinema by its extreme scenes and horrified characters. After, it has been followed by A

Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and Blue Velvet (1986). The previous movies combine certainpostmodern traits such as allusion, dream-like quality, psychological distortion, conflicts and aggressiveness. This kind of movies supplies a natural result for the dreadful quarrels and struggles.

Technically, postmodernist cinema presents no exception from other aspects in postmodernism. Movies rely on pastiche, intertextuality, and black humor. Most horror movies ‗paste‘ each other using slight differences, and they depict the same cliché storyline.

Famous instances are: Pulp Fiction (1994), Scream (1996), and The Ring (2002), My

BloodyValentine (1981) and Valentine (2001).

What is also remarkable about postmodernist cinema is the use irony and parody. Films use such technique to mock mythologies and old narratives in order to show their slander.

(12) Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) flouts King Arthur's quest to find the Holy Grail.

Parody in postmodernist movies is not only limited to old narratives. Some cinematic works criticize the previously made movies. Not another Teenage Movie (2001) criticize in a humoristic way the multiplicity of American teenage movies through the presentation of stereotypical events from those movies. Besides, postmodernist movies are able to combine different techniques to create another one. For instance, Dance Flick (2001) combines collage, intertextuality and parody in order to formulate another movie which satirically collates scenes from very well-known American movies and replays them in a comical way.

Just like architecture, art and cinema, literature in the postmodern era is thickly perplexing and contradictory. It nostalgically refers to history but criticizes its conventions; it supports unity but favours individualism; it celebrates muddle but tries to command lawlessness. The complexity in postmodernist literature can be explained basically by its

reference to other domains. Literature is a holistic result of architecture, art, and cinema.

The question over whether there is an authentic separate literature called postmodernism or is it just a refined step in modernist literature establishes a first tangle in postmodernist literature. Literatures of the two periods may overlap but still there are certain differences which can set reasonable borders between the two. Modernist writers like Virginia

Woolf, Frantz Kafka, William Faulkner, James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway place higher importance to the individual. They depict it as a source of wisdom and truth; consequently, their writings seem to be more like a report of points of views and personal considerations.

Furthermore, those writers disbelieve religious conventions and replace them with art. They thought that it is the responsibility of the writer to show sincerity and authentic facts. This is shown through one of the statements made by Wallace Stevens: ―in an age of disbelief … it is for the poet to supply the satisfaction of belief in his measure and style … I think of it as a

(13) role of the utmost seriousness‖.

In contrast, postmodernist writers, out of uncertainty and skepticism, subvert the value of individual views and opinions. They question everything including their own thoughts as

Walter Anderson says: ―in the postmodern world, you just don‘t get to be a single and (14) consistent somebody‖. Furthermore, modern writers want unity and homogeneity; whereas, postmodernists want a fragmented world highlighted by diversity, localization and unique identity.

In spite of the fact that postmodernist architecture, art and cinema first have emerged in

North America, Japan and Southern Europe, the first luster of postmodernist literature seem to sparkle in Western Europe through Irish writers. Most critics agree upon the notion that James

Joyce‘s Finnegans Wake (1939) is the starting point of postmodernist literature. The novel resembles nothing of what Joyce has ever written before. James Joyce in this work abandons

the old conventions of writing a novel.

He mixes up several techniques like stream of consciousness, metafiction, magic realism, shapeless plot, and story within story technique coupled with a bizarre language. He uses English words with some Irish and Scottish slang. He even creates odd words that cannot be possibly understood. Joyce‘s work does not fit in the common frame of postmodernist literature. The complexity of this novel is just beyond postmodernist novels. It should be categorized with an ‗extreme‘ postmodernism- if there is any. If this is the essence of early postmodernist literature, then it is fair to say that this literature has become easier and less complex.

In the same fashion, the other Irish Samuel Beckett has given a delightful soul to postmodernism through his stage works and poems. His play Breath (1969) differs from any stage work of any period. The play lasts for 25 seconds with no characters or dialogue. He depends on lights and sounds. The shockingly short work can be interpreted as a first step for minimalism in postmodern literature.

Beckett‘s second wondrous work is his poem ―What Is the Word‖ (1988). In these very few worded lines Beckett expresses his inability to find words to describe his own situation. Critics argue that he was suffering from aphasia, a language disorder caused by a damaged brain, but this seems a bit unbelievable because the man of words who has realized that he is writing a poem cannot possibly miss words. The poem is just a supplement to his late minimalist works. The late works by Joyce and Beckett set the first stage for postmodernism in literature. This smooth shift in literature proves the notion that postmodernism is just a refined period in modernism not a pure dissociated movement.

Comparatively, postmodernism has established its features through developing those brands of modernism.

Not far from Ireland, the British writers have attempted to submit novels with a postmodernist essence, yet their works seem to embrace mostly two features of postmodernism. They are famous of revising the past in order to criticize it using humor and

(15) irony. They are also pretty famous of semi- autobiographies. They mix their own real life events with some fiction. They use their fictional characters to express their own feeling and considerations. For example, Jeanette Winterson‘s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985) records some of her life events and her experience of maturity. Another good example of semi-biographies in postmodernist British literature is Empire of the Sun (1984) by J.G.

Ballard which recounts the story of the writer himself using an umbrella of a fictional character named James Graham.

In the United States, writers have delivered their best postmodernist novels during the years following 1965. Inspired by the different changes in the American society, writers have gained a great space of imagination and creativity. Once again Linda Hutcheon‘s definition for postmodernism of being contradictory can serve perfectly in describing the American novels.

They are absurd but meaningful, highly complex but greatly ordinary. They are usually tended to narrate the writer‘s own thoughts, yet they use a second person narrator in order to involve the reader in the story and make him an active participant.

Just like the diversified mother land, one novel can possess many themes, techniques, and meanings. In postmodernist literature,

The borders between literary genres have become fluid: who can tell

anymore what the limits are between the novel and the short story collection

(Alice Munro‘s Lives of Girls and Women), the novel and the long poem

(Michael Ondaatje‘s Coming Through Slaughter), the novel and

autobiography (Maxine Hong Kingston‘s China Men), the novel and history

(Salman Rushdie‘s Shame)‖. (9)

Several writers possess the credit of developing a well structured postmodern

American novel. In Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Kurt Vonnegut set the typical features of postmodern literature in America. First, the novel satirically reviews the period of WWII and its after math. Also, he intentionally makes the reader aware that his work is a mere fiction where Vonnegut cuts off his sentences to say: ―that was I. That was me. That was the author

(16) of this book‖. In addition, he massively depends on pastiche, intertextuality, non-linear plot and magical realism.

Vonnegut‘s works have been shortly followed by several short stories. Novels have been less preferred among American writers. Probably, this goes to the nature of the postmodern man who is haunted by technology rather than books. The works have become shorter but not less complex despite their infantile, sometime foolish stories. Even the titles of works are idiotic and sarcastic. John Updike‘s ―Rabbit is Rich‖ (1981), Raymond Carver‘s

―Will You Please Be Quiet, Please‖, and ―What We Talk When We Talk about Love‖

(1981) can be taken as good examples.

Several opinions maintain that postmodernist literature is male-dominated; however, this is untrue. Women writers have shown great capacity to match the new movement in the history of literature. Joyce Carol Oates, Barbara Kingsolver and Flunnery O‘Connor have succeeded to create fully outstanding works which perfectly portray the internal and social struggles of the postmodern individual. Other critics believed that postmodernist literature overmaster the conscious of the layman, for being too complicated, distorted, and for it lacks seriousness.

Postmodernism as a movement has gained a delightful credit throughout the world. It is advocated in almost every aspect. Regionally, it is widely known; the postmodern lights have reached several parts of the universe. In whatever way possible, postmodernism has affected the universal art, architecture, literature, music and life style in general. ‗Universality‘ as a postmodern quality assumes the existence of an Arabic postmodernism. But if it does, what are its characteristics? What differentiates it from that of Europe and America?

II- Questioning Arabic Postmodernism:

The Arabic literature just like its counterpart in the western world has gone through several phases and periods. Literary phases have usually gained their names from the Islamic caliphates appellation. Allen Roger in his book An Introduction to Arabic Literature tries to translate those names into English in order to introduce the Arabic literature properly. He divides those periods chronologically: the period of ignorance, Islamic, Umayyad, Abbasid, and modernization. Whether consciously or not Roger excludes Arabic literature from postmodernism as a movement.

In the same book he offers a chronology for periods in Arabic literature alongside the famous writers of that period. According to that chronology, modernism in Arabic literature starts in 1900 with writers such as Mahmoud Sami Al-Baroudi and Abd Al-Raḥman al-

Kawākibī until 1996 with writers like Imil Shukri Habiby, Jabra Ibrahim Jabra and Yusuf

Idris. Despite the writer‘s awareness of the existence of postmodernism, he chooses to limit the Arabic postmodernism to the modern period. A deeper look at some events would clarify and support the notion that believes in the existence of Arabic postmodernism.

Modernist Arabic writers are to be credited for their successful attempt to re-bring the

Arabic literature into its glamorous position. What has been lost after the Omayyad‘s period in

1258 was recovered in 1900. Along with their wished to develop literary artifacts, writers of this time have desired literature to be a guide for society, a discipline that documents the nation‘s positives along with its pitfalls and shortcomings. They have concentrated their efforts to control the chaos and try to find solutions.

Writers like Mahmoud Sami el-Baroudi, Hafez Ibrahim and Ahmed Shawqi have created together a literary movement in order to restore the old norms of writing literary texts,

(17) so they have established the School of Revival and Rebirth. Writers of 1930-1950 have nearly followed the same path of the previous movement, but they slightly modernized the principles. The migration of certain writers such as Elia Abû Mâdi, and Gibran Khalil Gibran has opened Arabic literature to other movements like realism and western modernism.

The contact between Arabic literature and that of Europe and America has produced a marvelous literature: ―Renewed contacts with the western world have clearly played a major role in the developments that have taken place in the Arabic literary tradition during the

(18) ‗modern‘ period‖. Arabic writers have presented some fictional works mixed with some real events, in which they criticized politics, and they revolted against some political and social conventions using an esoteric vocabulary and real complex expressions. In his poem

―Talaseem‖ [Talismans] (1940), Elia Abû Mâdi adopts an existential theme in order to wonder about his position in this world, his endless skepticism and his destiny as a human being. ―I came, I don‘t know from where but I came/ I observed a road, so I Walked/ am I new or old in this

(19) entity/ Am I free, or am I a chained prisoner/ I wish I know but / I do not.

Unlike Roger, some Arabic theoreticians do consider the existence of another period in Arabic literature following modernism called ‗Contemporary literature‘. The term

‗contemporary‘ however does not really suit an ongoing process such as literature. The term is highly ambiguous for it offers no clear limitations. ‗Contemporary‘ usually means ‗something of the present time‘: this definition reinforces the inefficiency of the term. Supposedly the term ‗contemporary‘ is replaced by ‗of the present time‘. Which present time exactly? That of

1945 or the one of 2015?

Probably most critics agree on the notion that postmodernism as a movement in western countries begun right after WWII, that is the years following 1945. Thus, it is a reflection of the horrible events of this massive war. During these years, The Arab world did not yet enjoy its full national sovereignty. So this war has presented no direct effect on the internal issues of the Arab countries. By the year 1965, most Arab countries got independence; however, they faced the challenge to build a self-ruled nation with complete governmental institutions. To them, re-building an independent nation was as difficult as fighting against the colonizer-and may be harder.

The moment that individuals in the Arab world have expected a bright world, a new struggle has been waiting on the other side. In 1967, Arabs have engaged in another war against Israel. Egypt, Jordan and Syria, supported by all Arab countries, led a massive war against Israel called Six-Day War. The poor condition of military defense of Arab countries resulted in massive defeat at all levels. The Arab-Israeli conflict continued to rise despite the agreements and the attempts to calm it down.

In 1973, Egypt and Syria launched another war against Israel. This war has become bigger and universal when the United States and the Soviet Union have joined the conflict.

The Middle East region was a place of struggles and disputes between Israel and the Arab countries. The Lebanese Civil War in 1975 has added insult to injury; the Arab-Israeli War shifted into a Christian-Muslim war, and even an Arab-Arab war.

These continuous events have created a bitter effect on the individual who has experienced a breaking moment between a hopeful independence and a destructed future.

Chronologically speaking, Arabic postmodernism as a movement was late compared to that in western countries. However, Arabic artists match the postmodern universal stream through producing unique and controversial works.

The conflictive atmosphere after 1975 has helped in releasing a new spirit in arts.

Writers, painters and scenarists have delivered great works. Most artifacts of this period have been intended to convey political, social or economic messages using an ironic voice. The remarkable parody in these works is a method to criticize the society as whole and governments in particular. Most of the first postmodern artistic works have been addressed to mock politics and political leaders. Then, this trend has expanded to include the social conventions, the individual thoughts and the state of the society in general.

Contrary to what was prevalent in western countries, Arabs in this period have gone back to theatrical performances in order to present their social and political statute. Years after

1965 witnessed the powerful return to theaters especially because play writers have chosen to emphasize on what they called ‗political theatre‘. The Arab audience back then has found a haven in plays which pictured the political realities in an attempt to find solutions.

th Through his very famous play Frolic for June 5 [Haflat Samar Min Ajl Khamsa Hzeiran]

(1968), Saadallah Wannous harshly criticizes Arabs and their failure in the setback of 1967.

The plays of this time show the dispersion of the Arabic society and tried to clarify the reasons behind such dilemmatic sphere through referring to history. Reference to history is not arbitrary; instead, it is a willful way to search for identity. After 1970, play writers have started to embrace the basic postmodern elements in their works. In 1970, Muhammad

Maghout has introduced his play The Clown [El-Muharrij] in which he depends on minimalism, parody and slang language in order to criticize policies of Arab countries and their inability to achieve success.

In the same year, Saadallah Wannous have introduced a new work entitled

TheAdventure of Jaber, the Head Owned [Mughamarat Raas El-Mamlouk Djaber]. This play hasameliorated the traditional techniques of presenting a play through depending on postmodern mechanisms. Wannous here relinquishes the old assets by presenting a fragmented work. He moves the events from one epoch to another. He focuses on the technique of

‗participation‘ to make the audience a part of his work, and he blends humor with seriousness.

As a postmodern trait, he also counts on pure demotic setting to present his play because he favors popular culture and common audience. He says: ―we want a theater for the public, for the laboring classes, we are making a theatre because we want a change, and a development‖.

(20)

In The years following 1980, the Arabic theatre has dropped off the veil of political criticism to shift into social criticism. All play writers like Farhan Bulbul, and Essam Mahfuz have managed to present works about women rights, religious fundamentalism, freedom of

speech and love. The Arab audience has historically considered those topics as taboos.

Accordingly, the shock factor which was experienced in western society in architecture has been experienced by Arabs in theatrical works.

Arabic postmodernism in art has started as well after 1975. Painters and sculptors have been affected by the Arabic destructed world. So, they delivered some works to express themselves and to portray the social disorder. Probably, their ultimate goal is to get out the feelings and struggles of the Arabic lay man rather than presenting the social and cultural failure. Generally, most artistic works are dark and paradoxical. The Egyptian sculptor Abdel-

Hadi Al-Weshahi emphasize in his works on human body. He deforms the real shape of human being by adding some animalistic traits in order to show the natural instinct of humans.

The remarkably soaring, thin works of Al-Weshahi refer to the contradiction of man between

(21) authority and vacuum.

Postmodern characteristics are clearly evident in the works of the controversial sculptor Sami Mohammad. The works of Mohammad primarily deal with the individual who is oppressed socially and psychologically. His works perfectly characterize his vision; his sculptors are blackish, gloomy, and faceless. In 1980, he has introduced a work of a screaming man with multiple mouths, wrapped up with a rope. His work groups struggle, fear, hesitation, power, and plurality of opinions. So, he simply presents the postmodernist individualistic

(22) thoughts.

Not so far from carving, painting has a great role in conveying messages of Arabic postmodern world. The first Arabic postmodern paintings are intended to celebrate folklore and popular culture. The works are a way to show resistance to the colonizer and to show esteem for local culture refusing hegemony and ascendancy. The works of Issa Yaakoub have

renewed the importance of art in the Arab world. They vary between celebrating the traditional society on one the hand, and showing the social destruction in Palestine on the other hand.

Ismail Shammout also is one of the greatest postmodernist painters in the Arab world.

What has been previously said about postmodernism of being contradictory is profoundly existent in the works of Shammout. He may mixes tradition, modernity, conservatism and liberalism in one work .Shammout depends on women profile and striptease in order to show support for Palestinian revolution. Woman figure in his works refer to Palestine as a country.

(23)

The emphasis on women figure in the paintings Layla Al-Attar and Baya Mahieddine is also remarkable. One here may question the over presence of women personification postmodern art. The symbolic female character in the paintings might be understood either as a reference to the mother land, or as a way to highlight the tussles of women under the rule of a male dominant society.

Postmodern art has reached its highest pick with the works of the Algerian Tahar

(24) Ouamane. He has presented a different art to the Arabic audience. He employs fragmentation and collage to deliver fallacious works that seem age-old. In addition to the works of Ouamane, the Palestinian Layla Shawa has brought new techniques to Arabic postmodern art. Shawa mixes intertextuality with parody in order to mock the western inanity. In a reference to the pop art of

Andy Warhol, who has pictured famous American artists and symbols, Shawa uses the same

(25) techniques to picture the Palestinian immovability. In brief,

postmodern Arabic art exceeds the western one by its strong sense of nationalism and (26) commitment.

Arabic Literature in the postmodern era has witnessed massive changes. Literature before 1970 has provided no strange themes or techniques. The Arabic reader has been accustomed to high standard writings which hold philosophical thoughts and intellectual ideas.

Arabic literature has been organized; it has offered comprehensible plots and relatively intelligible characters. The outturns of wars of independence and Arab-Israeli wars have shifted the ordinary Arabic literature. Arabic writers have engaged in a complex frame of mind. The social and political disorder have caused them to give up their trust and optimism.

In order to picture the chaotic society and the individual struggles, the Arabic writer has resorted to works which contains existentialist questions and philosophical complexities in an attempt to find a reasonable exit.

In 1970, Yusuf Al-Sibai has put the corner stone for Arabic postmodernism through his work Lasta Wahdak [You Are Not by Yourself] .The novel is fragmented; it combines reality with some fictional events, and it joins several disciplines together like religion, philosophy, and metaphysics. It addresses the reader to make him a part of the reading process. The writer uses symbolism and irony as well. The new unusual ways of presenting a novel have provoked some writers to utmost the old conventions of writing a novel.

In the mid-seventies, Arabic audience has experienced a shocking wave under the works of Ghada Al-Samman which discuss sexual issues of women, male-female relations, and the social statute of women in Arabic society. Many Arab critics and readers have viewed them as overly audacious. The Egyptian writer Nawal El Saadawi has increased the shock by

her bold works which openly examines the socially prohibitive issues like sexual abuse, religion, and women rape in Arabic societies. El Saadawi has launched a thematic postmodernism in Arabic literature when she has challenged the main stream literary topics through her work El Wajh El-aari Lilmaraa Laarabiya [The Naked Face of Arabic Woman]

(1974).

In the late eighties, postmodernist Arabic literature has focused more on techniques such as irony, black humor, and participation. In 1988, Ahmed Bahgat has sought to present an interrelated work in a form of collected short stories entitled Sa‘imoun w‘Allaho AaLam

[Fasting and God Knows]. This work depicts some attitudes of Muslims in Ramadan in a very humoristic way. The aim behind Bahgat‘s satire is to call the Arabic individual for moral repair, thus he says in the beginning of his book: ―Egyptians are famous for irony, and irony (27) belongs to madness. It is an anger that does not want to raise his voice‖.

After 1990, themes and techniques of Arabic novel have changed relatively, but they have maintained their philosophical and psychological path. The political-economic events of

1990 in the Arab world had great influence on literature. The economic struggle of The Iraq-

Kuwait War and the Gulf War inspired Arabic writers to depict the struggles with a special focus on economic ideologies, political parties, and globalization. In 1993, Jamal Naji has produced his novel El-Hayat fi Dimmat El-Mawt [Life in Custody of Death] in which he builds up a story around economic issues. His novel seeks economic knowledge rather than aesthetic purposes.

Following the same path of Naji, Ghazi Al Gosaibi has perfected the economic novel in Arabic literature. He depends in his work Shiqat El-Horiya [Apartment of freedom] (1994)

on descriptive narrative in order to inform the Arabic reader about some economic ideologies and terminologies. Along with the economic purposes, Al Gosaibi describes some human inner struggles, love and humanitarian sexual instinct. The openness in the novel is considered by some critics as insolence.

The first years of the new millennium have seen a gigantic change in the postmodern

Arabic novels. The social taboos have become more apparent in the Arabic literary works. The audience now is used to certain types of themes like women rights, sexual abuses and terrorism and religion. After 1995, some Algerian writers like Tahar Ouettar, Waciny Laredj, and Fadhila El Farouk have contributed in developing the literary Arabic postmodernism.

Influenced by the Algerian Civil War, these writers have relied on new revolutionary themes, techniques and language to tell their stories.

They mingle the standard Arabic language with slang languages. Besides, they focuse on aesthetic expressions to introduce some historical reports or stories. El Farouk in her work

Taa El-Khajal [T of Shame] (2003) depends on the western postmodern technique of

‗NewJournalism‘ to report facts of raped women in Algeria during 1995. Postmodernist writings in the Arab world developed even technically when writers have decided to embrace absurdity as their major technique. In 2003, Ahmed Alaidy has depended on minimalism in order to produce a work that combined all possible contradictions: platitude and seriousness, vulgarity and intellectuality, barbarity and rationality. Alaidy is also affected by Transgressive fiction, a work that contains characters who feel bound by standers of their society. In His work Antakoun Abbas El Abd [Being Abbas El Abd], he says ―yell at the face of traffic committee, atyour dad… at your relatives whom you do not know: stop judging me. Accept

me as who I

(28) am, not as you want me to be‖. In addition to that, his work is chaotic, fragmented and almost equivocal.

In the same direction, Muhammad Aladdin in his work Enjeel Adam [Adam’s Gospel]

(2006) modifies the shape of traditional novel. Aladdin perfects the construction of the shapeless plot. He gives the reader the freedom of dividing the parts of the novel, and he uses some very vulgar descriptive expressions using a dream-like quality. There is nothing about this novel that is not controversial.

Comparing western postmodernism with that of the Arab world, one can easily notice that the former is greatly diversified and productive; however, the latter holds much uniqueness and ingeniousness. Arabic postmodernist literature did not grow at one go. It is amplified gradually. The lateness of literary postmodernism in the Arab world can be traced back to several issues. The first issue is the scarcity of social open-mindedness. The Arabic reader is finical and conventional. So, he would not be easily open to the great changes of postmodern art and literature. Besides, the Arabic literary works lacks in the appropriate propaganda. Great originative works do not enjoy much promising success. Finally, the Arab world is known for its restrictive nature. Peculiar concepts are not always welcomed by the

Arabic authorities who fear the possibility of upheavals. All these problems contribute to the exclusion of Arabs from being a part of postmodernism. This theoretical part must be followed by a practical postmodern study to some Arabic literary works in order to prove an opposite point of view.

Notes and References :

(1) Linda Hutcheon,A Poetic of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction (London,

New York: Routledge, 1988): 3.

(2) Stephan Morawski, The Troubles with Postmodernism (London, New York:

Routledge, 1996): 111.

(3) Brian McHale, Postmodernist Fiction (London, New York: Metheun & Co.Ltd,

1987): 3.

(4) Steven Connor, The Cambridge Introduction to Postmodernism (New York:

Cambridge University Press, 2004): 1.

(5) Ihab Hassan, ―From Postmodernism to Postmodernity: the Local/ Global Context,‖

Ihab Hassan Biography and Index, n.d, Web, 23 Dec 2014.

(6) Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity (London: Verso, 1988): 3-4.

(7) A development of postmodern architecture that began in the late 1980s. It is influenced by the theory of ‗Deconstruction‘. It is characterized by fragmentation, dislocation, and unpredictability. (Accessed: 15 Feb. 2015, Wikipedia.org)

(8) A cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for its visual artworks and writings. It is best known for the illogical, strange creations which go beyond reality. (Accessed: 20 February 2015, Wikipedia.org)

(9) The provided explanation is my personal interpretation.

(10) A Japanese artist and writer. Throughout her career she has worked in a wide variety of media, including painting, collage, sculpture, performance art and environmental installations.

(11) A Japanese artist. She was born in 1970 in Hokkaido. Her works have circulated all over Japan as well as Germany, United States, Korea, China, and Paris. Her permanent collection can be viewed at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. (Accessed: 11

Jan 2015, courses.washington.edu)

(12) A plat that is an important theme of Arthurian literature. It is the cup from which the Christ drank at the last supper. It is said to be holy because it contains the blood and sweat of Jesus. (Accessed: 3 March 2015, Britannia.com)

(13) Lucy Beckett, Wallas Steven (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1974): 182.

(14) L.Philip Barnes, ―Late Modern Diversity,‖ Education, Religion and Diversity:Developing a New Model of Religious Education (London, New York: Routledge,

2014): 44.

(15) A work of Fiction that is strongly influence by events in an author‘s life. (Accessed:

7March 2015, dictionary reference.com)

(16) Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five (New York: Delacorte, 1969): 160.

(17) A Name given to the poetic movement that emerged in Egypt in the early modern era. Poets called for re-establishing the old systems of Arabic literature. (Accessed: 23

December 2014, Wikipedia.org)

(18) Allen Roger, An Introduction to Arabic Literature (New York: Cambridge

University Press, 2000): 3.

(19) Elia Abû Mâdi, ―Talaseem,‖ Al-Khamail [Talisman,‖ Furrows] (Beirut: Dar El- ilm Lilmalayeen, 1940): n.pag.

(20) Saad Allah Wannous, Bayanat Limasrah Arabi Jadid [Statements for a

NewArabic Theatre] (Beirut: Dar Al-Fikr Al-Jadid, 1988): 25.

(21)(22) (23) See the Appendices.

(24) An Algerian Artist. He was born in 1954. His paintings typify the modern Islamic art. (Accessed: 23 Nov 2014, Ouamane.com)

(25) See the Appendices.

(26) This explanation is my personal effort. It has not been mentioned in any other

work.

(27) Ahmed Bahgat, Sa’imoun w’Allah Aalam [Fasting and God Knows] Egypt: Dar

Al-Shorok, 1988).

(28) Ahmed Alaidy, An Takoun Abbes El-Abd [Being Abbas Al-Abd] (Egypt: Al-

Karma, 2006):12. (29) The English translation of certain works‘ titles is a mine.

Chapter Two:

Exploring Postmodernist Literary Aspects in Nessyane.com.

The general view which has been provided in the first chapter helps to ‗theoretically‘ dogmatise the existence of postmodernism in the Arabic arts, theatrical works, and literature most importantly. As a way to support the previous claim, the following chapter practically testifies the entity of postmodern properties in the work of Ahlam Mosteghanemi

Nessyane.com. This analysis shows how Mosteghanemi has kept up with postmodernism as auniversal movement through extracting the postmodernist literary techniques in this work.

The Algerian Ahlam Mosteghanemi ―made her name with a trilogy of novels:

Dhakirat Al-Jassad [Memory in the Flesh] (1997), Fawda Al-Hawas [Chaos of Senses] (1997), and Abir Sareer [Bed Hopper] (2003). The novels were bestsellers, with claimed sales of more (1) than two million copies and the author having the status of glamorous celebrity‖.

The name of Ahlam Mosteghanemi has always been related to feminism including the struggles of women in the Arab world. As a matter of fact, all her works are blindly assorted within a feminist halo. Mosteghanemi‘s open advocacy for female concerns has blocked critics from seeing other aspects in her works. In addition, several critics announce that her

‗diacritical‘ works enjoy massive lights as a result of a deceptive propaganda. In brief,

Mosteghanemi is a writer of a linguistic ability rather imaginative capacity.

Inspired by the social changes and struggles, contemporary Arabic literature has evolved amazingly. Writers have originated some great works thematically and stylistically; however, most of these master pieces have enjoyed a delicate spotlight. According to Syrian critic Ghaith

Hammour, ―modern Arabic literature has provided some exceptional writers like

Youssef Ziedan, and Fawwaz Haddad, yet still there is a lack of awareness about their works (2) because they are mall-treated by readers‖.

Hammour resents the miserable situation of literature in the Arabic societies thinking that new generations are ignorant on the grounds that they look for empty, ornate works rather than those which are close to their reality. It is important for the reader to look for works which fit his real social conditions. In the same article, he comes to claim that the answer for the question: who is the most familiar writer to you?‘ would be certainly one: The Algerian

Ahlam Mosteghanemi.

Hammour‘s introductory sentence in his article is not meant to glorify the status of

Mosteghanemi as a writer. In contrast, he criticizes her works and her inability to go beyond the frame of the forbidden trinity of religion, sex and politics. He adds that her works provide nothing but a pure recurrence at the level of techniques and themes. Ahlam Mosteghanemi, for him, does not genuinely reflect the social concerns of the Arabic reader; instead she deludes her readers by creating an embellished world of uncorrelated ideas. Hammour concludes that

Mosteghanemi‘s massive fame is ‗fabricated‘ because she lacks in the presence of well- arranged stories, and that she deceives her readers using beautified descriptive, poetic language.

The considerations of the critic Hammour are reinforced by the critic Sami Al-Badri.

He believes that the writer Ahlam Mosteghanemi is unable to form an orderly structured story that can impress and dazzle the reader. Likewise, He asserts that ―she is in need of new fashioned stories in her works, and that the aesthetic language she uses covers her failure at

(3) the level of building an organized story with clear lines‖. Mosteghanemi, for him, lacks the techniques of writing a complete and interesting novel.

The provided points produce another reason for the retraction in Arabic literature.

Both critics are caught by the traditional expectations of what the novel should contain. Most

Arabic critics fall into a classical frame of mind where they focus on projecting the conventional rules on a new text. Despite their purposeful criticism, Hammour and Al-Badri call for a main stream writing rather than a creative one in which the writer can experience personal peculiarities, concerns and techniques.

When certain elements like fragmented storyline, unrelated thoughts, and the absence of complete narrative come together, they create an immediate conclusion. Postmodernist literature is the frame for the previous characteristics. When the works of Mosteghanemi are described in such a way, it is a fair spot to say that her works are an embodiment of postmodernist literature. She follows a postmodernist trajectory through her works. She renounces the use of traditional forms of writing a novel which require the presence of a well- organized storyline. Besides, she depends much on postmodernist techniques such as intertextuality, metafication, Maximalizm and pastiche.

The writer also shows a great ability in adopting identifiable aspects of postmodernist literature such as irony and black humour. All this ranks Mosteghanemi among postmodernist writers in Arabic literature and presents her remarkable experimentation in playing with techniques, styles and language. The works of Mosteghanemi ―reach beyond the borders of their setting to tell a story of unrealized dreams and tragic becoming, making her tales

(4) significant to readers from across the Arab world‖ (Arab World Books).

More specifically, her work Nessyane.com implicates copious features of this

(5) movement. Nessyane.com is a self-help book where Ahlam Mosteghanemi attempts to provide tips for women on how to leave their frantic memories behind in order to build up a well- organized life. Nessyane.com has been translated into English under the title The Art ofForgetting by Raphael Cohen. Mainly, the writer addresses women in this particular book;however, she uses it also as a cover to address serious matters in Arabic societies. In this work, Ahlam Mosteghanemi appeals change on both levels personal and social.

The writer‘s choice to deliver a self-help book is certainly a first step in her postmodernist shift since this genre has presented a cultural phenomenon in the late twentieth century. Self-help books have been introduced to the Arab society through the works of Dr.

(6) (7) Ibrahim El-fiky and Dr. Mustapha Mahmoud. Yet, most of them present explanations for religious or psychological concepts. In literature, very few writers had the willingness to write books of this kind. They prefer to pass their experiences and thoughts through poems or in form of educational stories.

Nessyane.com primarily discusses a psychological frame of mind which has alreadybeen tackled in previous western works like: Ph.D. Chuck Spezzano‘s Heal Your

Heartbreak:How to Live and Love Again (2001), and How to Survive the Loss of Love (2006) by PeterMcWilliams, Harold H. Bloomfield, and Melba Colgrove. In point of fact, most self- help books have been written to address relationship problems. Mosteghanemi adopts the idea from another respect. At the level of form, she distinctly reports a fragmented short story intervened by poems. The writer brings in an ingenious perception. She relates postmodernist components to a self-improvement book rather than a typical novel. At the level of content,

she tackles the issues according to the mental and social state of the Arabic woman.

A detailed look at Nessyane.com proves more the existence of postmodernist literary elements in the works of Ahlam Mosteghanemi and Arabic literature in general. Despite the seriousness of the discussed matter in the book, the writer opines to address it sardonically.

Irony conquers most postmodern writings because writers have lost faith in social conventions, history, and religion. The high awareness of writers has been deceptively translated into silly works about serious matters like war and political conflicts. Ahlam

Mosteghanemi in Nessyane.com shares her ironic views with the reader as she speaks about grievous matters in the Arab world. As an open declaration, she admits: ―I wrote this guide with a great deal of sarcasm, I want you to laugh. Nothing deserves sorrow … the ideal

(8) treatment of all heartbreaks is laughter‖ (19-20).

The suspicious view which distinguishes postmodernism has created a world of contradictions. Writers were not able to embrace a stable position. They affirm then deny, accept then refuse, bless then curse. As a result, most postmodernist literary works were characterized by a salient discrepancy. The contradiction of postmodernist writers is embodied mostly in their attitude towards history. The latter formed a problematic area for all writers.

Their paradoxical foresight towards history appears most in their descriptions which moves around nostalgia, blame and hatred. Postmodernism, to Hutcheon, ―reinstalls historical contexts as significant and even determining, but in so doing, it problematizes the entire notion of historical knowledge. This is another of the paradoxes that characterize all

(9) postmodern discourse today‖. History structures a source of truth, pride and nostalgic place from the one hand, but it is also taken as a perverting place where most of human knowledge is incorrect on the other hand.

This literary inconsistency is immensely experienced in this book. The writer moves from a situation of a visible skepticism into a remarkable assertiveness. Out of a postmodern view, the writer experiences a paradoxical view towards history as well. The reference to history is not always full of interest. Mosteghanemi moves from an area of nostalgic feelings to another filled with ironic criticism. Beyond its visible goal, the main theme in this book, which is forgetting, is another way to express an elusive attitude towards historical fantasies.

Mosteghanemi sits on the fence between letting go of the past and recalling it. In other words, she is torn between a desire to hold over the memories and a wish to unchain herself from old restrictions and boundaries.

The frequent image of the mother in the book might be interpreted as the positive view of the writer towards history which holds ideas of nationalism and identity. The writer accompanies most of her thoughts with idiomatic expressions told by her mother, this may be taken as a tight confidence in historic judgments since idiomatic expressions embrace a sense of truth and wisdom. Certain descriptions evoke nostalgia for the national entities and the historical characters of Algeria.

Beyond the bounds of historical craving, Mosteghanemi describes the Arabic history as a time of fiasco and failure. In doing so, the writer depends on ironic descriptions in order to inform the reader about the political and social tragedies of the Arab world. In different instances, the writer acts like a historical revisionist where she steps in to recall certain historical incidents in order to criticize them.

The paradoxical attitude in postmodernist literature surpasses the limited area of

history and politics to reach personal thoughts. The writer experiences an incompatible

attitude about her own views. At times, Mosteghanemi interposes in through the events of the story to explore the fame and pride which she enjoys as a writer and as an individual. She implicitly reminds the reader about her far-famed status through telling stories about her superior thinking and endless influence. She thinks that the writer is no longer a passive teller, but he has a job towards his readers. She states: ―I constantly find myself as embodied in the love stories of my readers. Even men have asked for my help to solve their emotional problems‖ (21). The writer should act as a love guide for his reader; his job exceeds the idea of a writer.

All of a sudden, she comes to describe herself as a common woman with common thoughts, and that her writings are not that adequate. Mosteghanemi gives the impression that she is not the perfect example to look up to because she has lost faith in her own judgments. In an attempt to describe her reader‘s massive admiration to her works, she says: ―what a responsibility to become the head of an order devoted to love, to enquire followers and adherents to my doctrine of the emotions. Followers who in my name, pass on words of whose truth I‘m not completely sure, and advice of whose consequences I have no knowledge‖(21).

She adds: ―I have written this guide for myself as well. I may go back to read it one day‖ (39).

As a characteristic for loss of faith in personal foresights, Ahlam Mosteghanemi comes to vindicate most of her presented views. The ideas in the book are always accompanied with justifications. The writer uses notifications like ―this is not a women‘s manifesto‖ (11), and ―this claim is not exclusively mine‖ (17). The relatively long introduction, where she provides the reasons which have urged her to write this book, also gives the impression that she is trying to escape criticism. She declares: ―I have no such

pretensions. I am merely a nurse with nothing more than a first aid kit to stanch the bleedings

of broken feminine hearts‖ (18). In this quest, contradiction and lack of assertiveness have caused the writer to lose faith in her personal standpoints considering that they are unsteady.

This dual attitude between certainty and doubt leads the writer to use an ironic tone to describe herself. She occasionally mentions her instable thoughts and lack of esteem. She says: ―I have bought my own novel ... and out of my craziness I have read it on an evening. I thought it might cure me from some psychological diseases‖ (38). Self-ironizing can be a natural reason for the loss of faith that characterizes postmodernism. However, in this book, it can also be interpreted as self-consciousness. The writer is aware of the fact that she can produce wrong judgments about certain issues. Thus, she steps in to remind the reader about this concern. Postmodern philosophy

―emphasizes the elusiveness of meaning and knowledge.

This is often expressed in postmodern art as a concern with representation and an ironic self- (10) awareness‖. It is a moment of ironic depiction of one‘s ideas, but at the same time it carriesa sense of reasonable realization and recognition.

Suspicion, contradiction, and loss of faith are grouped together under the umbrella of psychological fragmentation. The violent world after WWII has created a sense of psychological vacuum. Absurdity and chaotic thinking overwhelm most literary works of the twentieth century. Postmodernist writers struggle to find a definable character. What used to be a point of absolute authenticity, turned to be problematic and unstable. Inspired by the disordered world, they prefer to produce decentered works at the expense of idealistic orderly ones. This anarchic nature of the world is what explains the fragmented content of postmodernist texts.

Nessyane.com is not a typical novel, but it does include a major story. The prominentstory in the book is not told all at once. Musteghanemi chooses to divide it into parts. The writer adopts an anti-form perspective in order to report the story. The old- fashioned structure is not really present in the book. There is no linear progression in the plot of the book. The emotional problem of the writer‘s friend can be taken as the climax in the story. Then, it moves into stable events when the reader may assume an expected closure for the story. The end of the book is another climax in the story where the reader recovers the intricate issue of the book. In addition to that, the main story is interrupted either by stories, poems or even long thoughts of the writer. Mosteghanemi has succeeded to form a story through collecting several related parts. In few words, the writer follows a fragmented storyline rather than a consecutive one. The structure itself is marked by unbalance, profusion and inconsistency.

In addition to this familiar interpretation, the fragmented storyline is used by the writer as a technique to provide more evidences. Nessyane.com carries an argumentative nature which necessitates the existence of several arguments. Mosteghanemi includes short stories in order to serve the general topic in the book. In fact, she openly presents ten short stories in the book in order to give more credit to the main story. These ten stories, which the writer calls stupid women‘s stories, exemplify the common cases of love and betrayal.

Millions of women have changed a man, but he left after recovery. Hundreds have changed their lives in order to please the other part. Yet, the result is one: betrayal. ‗Story within a story‘ is another popular postmodernist literary device which is used as a technique to express the lawless form of postmodernist literary texts.

The interventions in the major story are intended to provoke curiosity and to keep the reader‘s eagerness. However, the non-linear story line which the writer follows may distract

the attention of the reader from the original topic. These stories are to be taken either as a superfluous embellishment, or as a tautology. Apparently, this technique disperses the readers‘ attention. They may pass through a temporal separation from the work, but also it causes the writer to depart occasionally with her own thoughts far from the involved reader.

A great space is given to the detailed descriptions in the book. Both characters and events are excessively described in the book. The writer overly depends on details in order to support her own thoughts, and to create reliable scenes for the reader. Apparently, maximalism in postmodernist literature is not exclusively tied to the lengthy descriptions only. It is a mix of everything. Intertextuality and metafiction are other facets of maximalism. For instance, ― if an author is making loads of references to other texts—and to itself as a text—then we're most

(11) likely dealing with a work of maximalist fiction‖. In this work, everything is thrown into amix. There is an overlapping mixture that contains all these elements together. It is difficult to show this through isolated sentences because it appears in the whole bundle. Usually, maximalism in ideas is taken as a worthless redundancy because of its probable irrelevance.

However, the elaborations in this work can be explained as an intense enthusiasm towards the discussed issue considering that the writer calls for literary involvement in the reader‘s life.

Postmodernism as a movement is distinguished by its call for mini-narratives rather than grand narratives. Writers of the twentieth century reject to believe in old perceptions like

American exeptionalism, democracy and world harmony. These issues are taken as everlasting theories which will never be equivalent to reality. The idea of metanarrative has been discussed first by Jean-François Lyotard who defines it as: ―a story of mythic proportions, a story big enough and meaningful enough to pull together philosophy and research and politics

and art, relate them to one another, and –above all- give them a unifying sense of direction‖.

(12) To put it in simple terms, metanarrative are historically repeated ideas which become a part of an unbeatable truth.

The writer shows opposition to the concept of grand narratives but from another aspect. The writer makes reference to some traditional issues which have shifted man‘s thinking and blocked him from seeing the truth as it is supposed to be. Mosteghanemi believes that most historical myths are of little authenticity, and claims that most stories of old times are full of camouflage and disguise.

The culturally known myths do not represent the genuine reality of the Arabic

(13) society. ‗‗Do not believe in myths‖ is statement by the writer that confirms her attitude towards myths. Being a writer however, Mosteghanemi focuses on stories, film industry, and old songs rather than the universal grand narratives. Mosteghanemi believes that popular cultural elements are the ultimate reason behind the social, economic, political and even emotional failures. The old known songs, novels, and myths create an imaginative world which is completely unrelated to the reader‘s real globe. In a reference to the relative past stories, she claims: ―that time of ‗I forget you! / that is hardly impossible/ I never even think about that‘ … for God sake, doesn‘t this seems ridiculous … what happened is that they

(14) convinced us, for ages, that forgetting is impossible‖ (75).

In addition to the previously mentioned characteristics, postmodernism as a movement supports the popular culture of the common man. People have been exhausted from the dominance of aristocracy and upper classes. Works with high quality have been more privileged while other works, which are intended for the common man, have been described as

a complete platitude. Postmodernism calls for ―the importance of lower strata of culture as

(14) opposed to the uniform official high culture‖. Consequently, postmodernist works address no specific audience. Instead, they are meant for everybody. Just like architects and artists, postmodernist writers follow the same course. Most postmodernist literary works are dedicated to the commonality. Thus, most themes and topics are meant to meet the interests of the plain audience.

Popular culture is highly praised in this book. The writer tries in this work to reach the widest audience possible. As such, she chooses to use a considerable amount of culturally known icons in order to transfer her ideas to the public audience. The presence of such cultural images in the book is a way to captivate the regard of female readers in particular since the book is meant to subtend their own concerns. The writer clarifies her thoughts by referring to well-known Arab figures like singers and actors. She even depends on some examples from

Turkish works in order to identify her goals considering that they enjoy a high proportion of viewing. In one of the examples, she says: ―[man] is overburdened with that great love which most women call for. We want ‗Muhannad‘ or ‗Yahya‘ as exemplars for men who would be faithful lovers till the end of the series. Man however has gained a Mexican disposition where he doesn‘t know whose son is he‖ (110).

The presence of popular icons in Nessyane.com explains the writer‘s choice to embrace an ordinary language. Mosteghanemi uses a language that is much close to reality and far from that of fiction or philosophical perplexity. Between her well-formed Arabic language and her rich linguistic baggage, she interrupts her readers with some idiomatic expressions and common register. The two following examples would clarify more this linguistic entanglement: ―the suspicion of forgetting exceeds that of love itself. Love is

happiness while seeking to forget is an implicit recognition of being shattered‖ (32) against

this one ―I have never seen a woman and her maid buy clothes from the same shop. Haven‘t you considered what people would say if they saw you in similar outfits … you will see what

(15) she will end up doing, this ‗boss‘ of yours‖ (62). She depends on different dialects in order to meet the modest concepts of the plain reader. Despite the remarkable linguistic intellectuality that Mosteghanemi enjoys, she uses very average descriptions. The juxtaposition between the poetic language and the common one is actually very common in postmodernist writings.

Postmodernist obsession with popular culture has created a bond between the artist and his audience. The plain audience is a source of inspiration and a target; thus, postmodernist writers desire to express thoughts and struggles of the mass audience. The reader, according to postmodernist writers, is not considered as a passive reader who blindly receives the events of the literary text. A kind of an indirect dialogue is created between the writer and his reader. So, writers have chosen to include him in the reading process. Readers ask questions, wonder, anticipate and create questionable scenes.

The writer in this book intentionally addresses the reader in order to share her ideas and thoughts. Mosteghanemi‘s commitment towards her readers appears most in her declamatory language where she combines both stimulation and reprimand. She calls female readers ―silly, stupid, naïve, dumb‖ in order to make them aware of their idiotic attitudes

(30).

The writer‘s bravery to say such words shows much her close relation with her readers.

In order to create this recognizable bond with their readers, postmodernist writers depend on second person narrative along with the first person narrative. The second person 61

narrative is used to address the reader and make him a part of the text. The rhetorical nature of

the text necessitates the existence of this type of narration. The following quotes clarify more this idea: ―do you really want to forget? When you answer ‗yes‘, ask yourself again the way (16) George Kordahi does ‗is this your final answer‘ … try this game. Get to know yourself through asking this question: what do you remember exactly‖ (193-210).

The presence of the pronoun ‗you‘ in the text makes the reader think, assume and even suggest. In postmodern literature it is referred to as ‗participation‘ or ‗reader involvement‘. The latter is a technique where the reader can develop an image of his own for the written text. In this respect, William Gaddis says: ―I do ask something of the reader and many reviewers say I ask too much … and as I say, it‘s not reader-friendly. Though I think it is, and I think the reader gets satisfaction out of participating in, collaborating, if you will,

(17) with the writer, so that it ends up being between the reader and the page‖. This allows the reader to step out from the imaginative frame of the writer, but also allows him to understand the text in a better way.

The first person narrative is used by the writer to speak about her own experiences and daily events. Nessyane.com is not a work of fiction where the writer‘s personal interventions are to be taken as metafiction; however, it is rich with certain metafictive devices. In this work, she introduces her own works, her fellow friends, and she interacts with her readers. For instance, she presents a previous work and her friend by saying: ―my dear friend Hanadi Rabhi, who is the director of the counseling and psychological research office in

Dubai, has invited me to meet her patients whom she was curing using my works … and I have found before my own novel Fawda El-Hawas in a pharmacy in El-Hamra street, along with diet books‖ (38).

Postmodern writers show a great deal of hatred to technological developments. For them, technology has contributed to the chaotic world after WWII because it has brought a sense of social, mental and physical hurt. Several writers have produced works with

‗technological effect‘ as a theme. Science is considered to be the major cause of this war.

Writers ―have considered literature as representing the imagination, intuition, and emotions, opposed almost by default to the ‗inhuman,‘ mechanistic explanations of the world that (18) science allegedly offers‖. In doing so, the writers depend most on science fiction novels in order to present their contraposition towards technology. The main characters were described as being bombarded by technological refinements rather than enjoying its positive effects.

Ahlam Musteghanemi also shows an opposition towards technological innovations.

She believes that the world has become meaningless, for it lost its emotional aspect. The issue of technology is frequently tackled in this book. She views scientific refinements as the first reason which causes people to lose the emotional touch that has characterized their life before.

The writer considers that people in modern life are slaved by technological inventions such as: television, phone and internet. In brief, technological inventions for her have materialized life through eliminating human senses. Mosteghanemi says that ―our big emotional sensations have died out of those little technological delights‖ (166). The writer goes further to even condemn Alexander Graham Bill, the phone inventor, because ―lovers were happier, calm and confident before his invention‖ (221).

The disorganized world after WWII caused writers to call for extremism, and to support the shocking inventions. Extremism is another facet for the chaos theory in postmodern literature. In Nessyane.com she calls for extremism in feelings, in attitude, and in

character. According to her, mild persons are easy to be forgotten since they create no exception in life.

(19) ―As no woman has ever done‖ is a title of a one section in the book where

Musteghanemi claims for emotional profusion rather than moderation. In a form of a free verse poem, the writer asks her readers to be as emotionally liberated as possible. She revolutionizes against order and expected characters by stating: ―raise the bar high that no any other woman can reach. In love do not hold anything. Be excessive in everything, and reach the extreme in every situation, your strength lies in your extremism .Don‘t love … lose your heart, don‘t use reason … be crazy‖ (85). Despite the fact that love is the major target here, Mosteghanemi implicitly repairs to other aspects of life especially those of art.

Postmodern texts-or any other texts- are not isolated inventions. Correspondingly,

―The poet John Donne once wrote that ‗no man is an island,‘ and for postmodernists, no text is an island … works of literature can only be created using stuff that already exists. Looking at it from this perspective, then, intertextuality is unavoidable‖ (Shmoop). Under this analysis,

Nessyane.com is not considered to be an originative book in the full sense. Many books havebeen written in the same dynamic. The writer does not deny that in any ways. Instead, she acknowledges the inspiring source which has motivated her to write such kind of book which is considered to be out of her famous zone. The early passages of the book are dedicated to count the reasons behind such transitional work. The writer admits that the work is based on a self-improvement nature, and that the idea comes from her admiration of certain works like those of Mario Vargas Llosa‘s and Mahmoud Darwish. She states: ―how I got caught up in this book! More recently, the Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa published his Letters for

aYoung Novelist. Here he offers a lifeline to young novelists in their struggle to understand the

complex alchemical forces of creativity … the most recent surprise that came from of one of the last poems Mahmoud Darwish wrote before he died, which he leaves as a testament to young poets‖ (15-17). This may be taken as direct reference to the works which have opened the writer‘s view to create such a book.

Ironically, Nessyane.com is divided in a very familiar way that resembles certain works about postmodernism. The writer adopts the form of certain postmodernist books like that of Linda Hutcheon‘s A Poetic of Postmodernism and Brian McHale‘s

PostmodernistFiction. The book is divided into entitled sections, each begins with a quote.

This particularform is not quite familiar to the Arabic reader who is accustomed to a particular type of formal narration.

Intertextuality in Nessyane.com appears not only in the general shape of the work.

The writer uses several intertextual techniques. In a sort of allusion, the writer makes use of certain known contexts in order to introduce a new concept. In a reference to some political, cultural or religious sayings, the writer links them to a newly-born context. Allusion is purposely adopted in postmodern writings. For instance, she says ―to postpone a happiness in your hand … for a one on the tree‖ (71) refers to the famous idiomatic expression ―A bird in the hand is worth than two in the bush‖; ―tell me what do you remember I tell you who you are‖ matches the famous idiom of ―a man is known by the company he keeps‖ (210). The alluding intertextuality is a creative technique used by this writer. It shows the source of the words in an implicit way.

In order to support her thoughts, the writer uses quotations as another form of

intertextuality. The writer has chosen to include a quote at the beginning of each section in

addition to different quotes at the heart of the text. The quotes have different backgrounds.

This shows the significant acquaintance of the writer. In many cases, she uses quotes of famous figures from different domains like: history, religion, politics, fashion, and arts. For instance, she frequently quotes Ali ibn Abi Talib: ―who warned you, he has actually boded you‖ (81); Eisenhower: ―who doesn‘t consider you as a capital, do not take him as a gain‖;

Mark Twain: ― when a woman hates a man so much, you must know that has loved him so much before‖ ; and Nizar Qabbani: ― let her be crazy. Only huge creative works are written by crazy people‖ (60). The writer selectively quotes some universally influential characters in order to prove her point. These quotes also go in accordance with her purposes.

In addition to the multiple quotes that Musteghanemi includes in this work, she depends on quotes from previous works of her own as well. The writer leans on quotes from her former master pieces, like Dhakirat Al-Jassad and Abir Sareer, in addition to a sequence of poems. The reason behind such a technique is to support the text, but most importantly to create a link between the different works she has introduced in her career as a writer, especially that her quotes are pretty famous among Arab readers. It is important to realize that the writer manages to combine two literary techniques together. The quotes from her works seem to fit metafiction, but they can be taken as a one form of intertextuality. Here, the reader finds it perplexing to decide the type of the used technique.

Writers in postmodern era avoid the classical closure of stories. Many writers have sought to create a different ending for the reader rather than the expected one. As a self- improvement book, the reader may expect that Musteghanemi would create a colourful ending for her readers in order to assure that her methodology is effective. However, he experiences a

shock moment instead. The writer admits her failure to cure her friend from the disease of

memories. The pessimist ending re-puts the reader in a situation of anxiety rather than relief.

This is a situational irony where the writer gives the opposite of what was expected or what seems to be appropriate. As a supplement to the unusual ending, the writer finishes up the book with a group of precepts. She provides readers with a form of an agreement in which she asks her readers to sign their names at the end of this page. This technique is unique, unparalleled and it bears a sense of humor. But, it also gives high sense seriousness. The agreement helps in creating a literary bond with the writer from one hand, and it acts like a summary for the whole book from the other hand.

The careless attitude of most postmodernist writers has generated works that are characterized by the call for creativity, individuality and uniqueness. In postmodernism, rules make no sense. Everything is accepted and even glorified. Critics of postmodernist literature accept most works to be originative and unique. Ahlam has always provided a good example for writers who dislike standards. The writer furnishes a new space for certain techniques that could be involved in postmodernist literature.

The postmodernist call for uniqueness is shown right at the beginning of the book.

The writer chooses a peculiar audience for her book when she dedicates it to hackers who wait for her books in order to publish them illegally. The writer here seeks to break free from the common place of this part in books, but also to show scorn to certain actions. The implicit way of showing that, proves the writer‘s intelligence in gaining attention and admiration.

The title of the book carries an element of curiosity through the multi-meanings nature it holds. It gives hints about the complexity of the book as whole. When deconstructing

‗Nessyane.com‘ as a title, the reader may conclude how perfectly suitable it is for the content

of the book. To clarify, the writer has created a site for women who want to share their experiences and thoughts about relationships, personal struggles, or their opinion about the efficacy of the pieces of advice which provided in the book. The dotcom which is added to the title supplements the writer‘s first aim since this is the general format of sites. Different from that, the suffix ‗com‘ in Arabic language is understood as ‗yours‘. Here, the writer reminds the reader that forgetting is a personal choice which can be achieved only through dedication and devotion. She concludes her book by commenting: ―I wish that none of you will come to me later in the future to complain about some love memory. From now on, forgetting is yours

―(329).

The presence of major postmodernist traits in Nessyane.com does confirm the existence of postmodernism in Arabic literature; however, it also stimulates curiosity about the postmodernist Arabic works. Ahlam Mosteghanemi depends on postmodern themes and techniques in order to update Arabic literature and to sparkle it with a new spirit. But she attempts to give a room for literary creativity of her own. She deviates from the typical western postmodernism by depending on some unfamiliar techniques. As have been said before, Nessyane.com is dedicated to women who want to give up their old memories in order to move on with their lives. However, Mosteghanemi defines the audience openly. In a form of a stamp, she includes a controversial statement on the cover of the book stating that this book cannot be sold to men. By doing that, the writer provides an originative technique that may enlarge the sense of curiosity.

Nessyane.com can be also ranked as an informational book. In an attempt to show herintellectuality and acquaintance, she stops occasionally to inform the reader about certain

technological discoveries or scientific theories. The following examples clarify the previous

point: ―by the way, selective reading therapy is one of the newest procedures of psychotherapy‖ (38); ―some scientific studies have confirmed that when women fall in love, the hormone of testosterone, which is related to the aggressive tendency, rises up‖ (145). This technique helps the readers to develop a better vision, but the over-utilization of informational concepts in the book turns it into a superfluous accumulation of ideas.

It is quite known that postmodernism goes hand in hand with irony. Postmodernist writers have used the ironic tone to show their displeasure with the world politics. According to Linda Hutcheon, ―With parody – as with any form of reproduction – the notion of the original as rare, single, and valuable (in aesthetic or commercial terms) is called into question‖.

(20) (The Politics) In simple words, parody in postmodernism is used to question those stable entities of life. With this in mind, it can be said that irony and sarcasm which characterize most postmodernist writings come not from the ignorance of writers but oppositely from their high intellectuality. Social and political awareness is what really distinguishes the postmodernist writer. Thus, this ironic depiction is a translation to their recognizable consciousness.

As have been previously mentioned, the writer in this book also depends on irony as a major tone to deal with the discussed subject. Mosteghanemi shares this feature with western postmodernist writers; however, she limits criticism to the concerns of the Arab world. She tackles different aspects and domains in her book using ironic attitude. The aim is to criticize some enraging issues for the sake of getting readers to change and to fix what has been broken. Excellence is delivered by the writer at the level of sarcasm.

The overall social standing of the Arab world is not something that seems to please

Ahlam Mosteghanemi. Her works demonstrate her paradoxical attitude which moves between grief, dissent and a desire to change. The national affiliation of the writer can be noticed in most of her works, Nessyane.com is not an exception. Mosteghanemi however shows regard in a different way. The writer implicitly expresses her personal views about the Arabic society.

She depends most on literary devices like illusion and similes in order to criticize the Arabic society. The use of such devices serves perfectly her choice of sarcasm and satire.

Musteghanemi believes that Arabic societies can be described as rudimentary and that goes back to several issues. Mostly, she argues that this world has lost its chivalric identity and historical union. In this satirical simile she refers to the deception and perfidy of societies against one other. In this statement: ―Do not let go of your debts for his own sake, he is not a third world‖ (141), there is a reference to the Arabic failure at the level of economy, technology and politics.

Ahlam Mosteghanemi does not only blame the society for its remarkable negativity, but she occasionally blames the Arabic individual for not seeking self-improvement. The already expected audience of the writer causes her to destine the criticism towards women rather than men. Irony seems to be the preferable mechanism for the writer in order to convey exhortations. This methodology has worked perfectly for the writer because it holds a dual factor into it. It serves her goal of making people laugh but also to make them consider their problematic struggles.

The writer counts the endless problems of the Arabic woman. Most of these problems

are psychological. They are the result of cumulative memories and emotions. The ironic

description of the writer appears most in her quote ―when we do not suffer from a mother complex we do suffer from a father complex. And sometimes we carry both of them as a proof for our excessive Arabic belonging or even our femininity‖ (110). The writer here criticizes the

Arabic woman for her limited awareness. But in fact, she blames the society as a whole for not being able to trust young people.

The aspects of society, morals, and politics are overlapping and cannot be separated.

When the individual morals fall apart, the overall structure would fall as well. Readers of this book may have huge expectations that it is exclusively dedicated for one reason that is forgetting. However, the writer‘s goals are beyond the love cover she uses. Whenever she addresses women the reader perceives her reference to political concerns. In a point of fact, most of her ideas are inspired or motivated by political reasons. Nessyane.com in particular is not work of entertainment. In contrast, it is a book of high political ambitions.

The nature of this book liberates Ahlam Musteghanemi from the chains of the novel.

She goes far from the traditional themes of love relationships, women, and feminism to social and political issues and philosophies. The writer owns a clever literary methodology. The ceaseless hints over political history, leader‘s tyranny and the social disadvantages may create revolutionary ideas which call for change and improvement. Mosteghanemi‘s Nessyane.com is more of a political- improvement book rather than a self help book.

Notes and References:

(1) Susannah Tarbush, ―Chocolate Is your Weapon,‖ Banipal Magazine of

ModernArab Literature, n.d: n.pag. Web. 9 Oct. 2014

(2) Ghaith Hammour, ―El-Shohra El-Kadiba, El-Tawadoe El-Adabi, wa Ghiyab El-

Mokhayila. Ahlam Mosteghanemi Namudaj,‖ [The False Fame, the Literary Weakness, and the Absence of Imagination: Ahlam Mosteghanemi as a Case Study] Arageek, 23 January

2015, n.pag, Web, 30 Jan.2015.

(3) Sami Al-Badri, ―Interview by Hassen Merabet,‖ El-Chorouk.Online, 15 March

2015: n.pag, Web, 16 March 2015.

(4) ―Ahlam Mosteghanemi,‖ Arab World Books, n.d: n.pag, Web, 14 Feb.2015

(5) Book that is written with the intention to instruct its readers on solving personal problems. These books take their name from Self-Help, an 1859 best-seller by Samuel Smiles, but are also known and classified under "self-improvement". (Accessed: 26 February 2015,

Wikipedia.org)

(6) An expert in Human Development and NLP. He earned a Ph. Degree in Human

Behavior. (Accessed : 17 April 2015, Rasulalshihab. Blogspot.com)

(7) An Egyptian philosopher and a prolific author. He was trained as a doctor, but later chose a career as a journalist and author. (Accessed: 11 March 2015, Wikipedia.org)

(8) Ahlam Mosteghanemi, Nessyane.com (Beirut: Dar Al-Adab, 2009).

(9) Linda Hutcheon, A Poetic of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction (London,

New York: Routledge, 1988): 89.

(10) Alan Kirby, ―The Death of Postmodernism and beyond,‖ Philosophy Now, Nov-

Dec 2006: n.pag, Web, 20 April 2015.

(11) Shmoop Editorial Team, ―Postmodern literature Characteristics,‖ Shmoop.com.

11 November 2008: n.pag, Web, 11 April 2015.

(12) Tim Muehlhoff and Todd V. Lewis, Authentic Communication: Christian

SpeechEngaging Culture (US: IVP Academic, 2010): 160.

(13) Title of a section in the book of Nessyane.com. Page: 135.

(14) The lyrics of a well-known song in the Arab world. The singer is pretty famous as well: Umm Kulthum.

(15) Myra Mendible, ―High theory/ Low Culture: Postmodernism and the Politics of

Carnival,‖ Journal of American Culture, 22:2, 1st January 1991: 73, Web, 16 May 2015.

(16) Arab presenter of the world famous program: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

(Accessed: 26 May 2015, Rasulalshihab. Blogspot.com)

(17) Emily Temple, ―An Essential Postmodern Reading List,‖ Flavorwire, 8 February

2012: n.pag, Web, 18 Feb.2015.

(18) Ursula Heise, ―Between Technophobia and Utopia: Science and Postmodern

Literature,‖ 21C, 3:2, n.d: n.pag, Web, 17 Dec.2014.

(19) Title of a section in the book of Nessyane.com. Page: 85.

(20) Linda Hutcheon, The Politics of Postmodernism (London: Routledge, 1989): 140.

Chapter Three:

Remembering the Other Kinds of Despotism.

While the second chapter projects postmodernist literary characteristics on the work of the Algerian writer Ahlam Mosteghanemi, this last chapter will act as a supplemental study to the book Nessyane.com. In an attempt to investigate the existence of postmodernism in

Arabic literature, it has been noticed that the late literary works in the Arab world carry much emphasis on themes about political and social conditions, Arabic leaders, and lack of political freedom.

Ahlam Mosteghanemi in Nessyane.com utilizes the cover of male-female relationship in order to address serious matters in the Arabic societies. This chapter aims to find answers for certain issues: how does the writer manages to use postmodernist literary techniques in order to exhibit her political views? What are the stimulations behind her political exploration? What are the aims and the results of the late postmodern Arabic literature?

There has always a tight relationship between literature and politics. Writers have always addressed political issues. Whether intentionally or not, both poets and novelists find themselves as a part of a political frame. They utilize their aesthetical works to report, to criticize, or to support political events. This relation presents sometimes an inescapable adherence because politics influence literature strongly. But mostly, literature affects politics, and that is exactly what Arabic Postmodernist literature seems to be doing.

The late years of the last decade have witnessed a remarkable shift in Arabic literary works. Writers have allotted great space for political criticism. The social, economic and even 81

moral landscapes have been highlighted in almost every novel and poem. Writings after 2003 have entered another room of political literature. Apparently, Arabic writers have been dissatisfied with the constrained political laws which fear literature since the effect of the latter on societies has been great through times.

Ahlam Mosteghanemi as a writer is greatly affected by the political scenery. In her very famous work Dhakirat Al-Jassad [Memory in the Flesh] (1993), she discusses the socio- political period following the Algerian independence. The writer in this novel addresses the conflict over power and the loss of national identity. More specifically, she describes the psychological struggles of characters, and how they manage to balance between a stubborn desire to gain power and to be satisfied with a personal pride for taking a part in a great revolution.

Her recent works do not offer much difference. In her late work AL-Aswad Yaliq Biki

[Black Suits You Well] (2012), she deviates from the expected love story in order to draw attention to certain socio-political issues in her country of birth Algeria. The main characters suffer from the chained society. Mosteghanemi chooses the years after the Algerian Civil War

(1) as a setting for her work. This choice is not arbitrary. She consciously adopts this setting in order to criticize the Algerian social conditions which have created a scene of paranoia and long standing years of ultimate disorder.

Nessyane.com can be called a‗political manifesto‘rather than a female one. Using anaesthetical language, Mosteghanemi provides the reader with a full outlook about politics in the Arab world. The dissatisfaction of the writer is shown through the different parts of the work. It is quite perplexing to conclude that Mosteghanemi‘s aims go beyond the rusticity of

relationship problems. Unlike the other works, Nessyane.com exceeds the world of Algeria. It addresses the political affairs of the Arab world as a whole. The writer aims at making the

Arabic reader aware of the oppressing political rules in his country.

The frequent presence of the political glances in the works of Ahlam Mosteghanemi can be traced back to several issues. The writer has been raised in a family of politicians and

(2) fighters. Her father Mohammad Sherif Mosteghanemi had a great role in evoking the sense of nationalism and political positions. The effect of her father‘s great political carrier appears most through her first novel Dhakirat Al-Jassad where she depends on the real events of her father‘s life to build the story. Correspondingly, her travelling to Lebanon in the 1980‘s has widened up her political knowledge. She gained over a fresh sense of Arabic belonging considering that the whole region was suffering from wars and conflicts. In a few words,

Ahlam Mosteghanemi‘s reference to politics comes from an autobiographical thrust.

Having said that Nessyane.com is a work that embraces most postmodernist entities, it is a foregone conclusion that the writer would address politics. In fact, Mosteghanemi depends on canonically political terminology in order to deliver her message. It does not take much effort from the reader to notice the multiplicity political expressions in her work. It is strongly remarkable that the writer purposefully uses such terminology. None of her previous works hold much political language.

As one of the multiple examples, the writer announces: ―whoever agrees with me, and would like to join a new party with no banking record, a bloody history, or fundamentalist slogans, he can join this website: www.nessyane.com. Our project carries no plan but facing (3) the imperialism of memory, and emotional aggression of the past‖. The existence of words

like party, aggression and imperialism supports the writer‘s relation to politics and the effect of politics on her writings and descriptions. She could have chosen a different word register to address the issue.

The political register is present in almost every part of the book. The conscious choice to use such element can be considered as a new technique that serves the major aims of this work. The reader is frequently interrupted by political words, phrases, and statements. The writer enjoys creative vision on how to direct the reader‘s views. When a serious issue like that of politics is covered with a habitual theme as ‗forgetting a relationship‘, one must appreciate the work and explore its mysteries.

Some parts of this work resemble much the familiar format of political speeches. As has been stated earlier, the writer depends on ‗participation‘ as a postmodernist technique to involve the audience in the reading process. This technique skillfully serves the political strategy which the book aims at accomplishing. A closer look at this quote will explain this concept: ―announcement No.1 … people, wise up! I swear, your only salvation is forgetting.

Do not let memory be a misery anymore. Break away from your parties, your confessions, your nationalities, your livelihood, and join a party where all of us are equal before loss‖ (9).

The introductory paragraphs in the book tend to take the form of political speeches.

Even the words which are mentioned in this example have a political foundation. Pure literary works do not really include that much of political declarations. Just like critics, readers also categorize Ahlam Mosteghanemi among the pure feminist writers who call for equality. It takes more than an overall standing to recognize that this book aesthetically conveys the deep meaning of social and political truth instead.

It is quite common that history is deeply related to postmodernist literature. The importance of history in postmodernist literature comes from the problem of interpretation.

Postmodernist writers no longer tell history, they revise it. This is the dividing line between postmodernism and other periods. Michel Foucault declares that telling history is a ―claim to knowledge, [that is] an attempt to overpower others, then retelling history serves the purpose

(4) of gaining power for some repressed group‖. Foucault here claims that those historical recordings are a method to control lower classes. But, when postmodernists come to revise history, the power will be handed over to the oppressed groups because they will know the truth.

In Nessyane.com, Mosteghanemi brings back historical events as a means to emphasize doubt and mistrust. This work typifies the previous words by Foucault because it highlights the problems of the common man who is blinded by historical ‗myths‘. What differs however is that western postmodernists focus on ideologies, while the writer here puts emphasis on politics. She sets this book as an anti-governmental book. In doing so, she reminds the Arabic reader about the historical failure of the Arabic leaders and their oppressing colonelcy.

The historical reference in this book is too heavy that the reader may attain a conclusion that certain examples are ‗intruded‘ into the text. The similes and the historical stories sometimes are heavily loaded within the parts of this work. It seems that they do not necessarily fit to the general meaning of certain statements and that some of these stories can be excluded easily from the text. However, Mosteghanemi, as an experienced writer, succeeds to smoothly escape what could be a remarkable dismantling.

Mosteghanemi goes back to history in order to criticize the politics of Arabic leaders through years. She explicitly highlights the flaws and inaccuracy of those leaders. The book serves as an umbrella in which the personal views of the writer are collated. In one way or another, she accuses politicians of creating a gloomy situation for the individual who finds himself at last a part of a stupidly controlled country. She attributes the present situation of the

Arabic world to the successive washouts of the past. Mosteghanemi surprises the reader about the shadowed history of Arabs to say that: ―the bed is not a safe place for a woman who appeals Forgetting. Do not ask for an emotional asylum from it. It will hand you over to ‗your

(5) beloved enemy‘ just like Al-Tourabi handed over Carlos to France. And as the Arabic governmental systems do to every single oppositionist who entrust them for his life‖ (67). She adds ―If did the Arabs succeeded in determining those strategic locations, we would not have lost all those wars‖ (128).

Apart from the colourful side of the Arabic history, Mosteghanemi chooses to go with the negative side of it. She considers that this history is not a place of pride or appreciation. It is a time of dilemmatic stories. She says that ―we, as an Arab nation, should be recovering from the fruitless love stories, including the love for the countries which have never given love back. When we recover from those historically sentimental failures, we can confront them with what a battle needs, that is, Stiffness and rigidity‖ (33). The disgraceful history has affected the Arabic psychic in general. They have lost their ability to fight for their rights because their history already let them down once.

The writer constantly recalls the historically shameful events of the Arab world. In addition to the tyrannical rule of leaders, she believes that they do not enjoy a stable vision on

how to protect themselves and their countries. Many governors have been victimized by their

intimate assistants. Here, the writer denounces the naivety of Arabs which has been many times a reason for failure and discomfiture. She tells the reader: ―because it has agents who (6) live in our soul, and then conspire against us, memory always defeats us. Begin was always saying that whenever there are five persons, Arafat would have three and I would have two …

Israel would never win a war if there were no traitors and spies‖ (205).

Coming from that, Mosteghanemi does not only hold responsible the Arabic leaders.

She believes that Arabs themselves are not politically knowledgeable. Arabic citizens think of their governors as above criticism. In an ironic statement, she says:

Is there an Arabic country that has judged its ruler for his squandering and

his misconduct? … Do not wait for apologies. Are you, god forbid, a

European or an American citizen to ask a man for an apology because he has

lied to you, or because he has broken hid electoral promises? (176)

The writer tries to say that Arabs stereotypically admire their ruler- it is not a democratic admiration though. The Arabic individual fears political involvements to the extent that he is willing to accept despotism and oppression in return of a peaceful, steady life. The writer points the finger at the Arabic individual and blames him also for being too emotional even at the expense of his emancipation. According to Mosteghanemi, Arabs do not instruct their lives properly. She points out:

When a minor quake hits an Arab country, it totally wipes out a city and

chokes life for a number of years. This is because the Arabs are inherently

fatalistic. They let life take care of itself. In life, as in love, they see no

further than today. They are quite ready to die as victims of natural, or 88

amorous, disasters because they have a genetic predisposition towards

mindless self-sacrifice for the sake of the nation and despotic rulers. (28)

The Arabic individual is defined by Mosteghanemi to be naïve and politically careless. She believes that he is controlled much by his moronic judgments. It is a duty to protect the country you live in, but monitoring rulers is not against any of what this statement holds. The previous example is meant to say that people do sacrifice a lot for a country which rewards less. Leaders do not offer as much as they receive, so they should be judged or dislodged.

The political aims of the writer are shown even through the structure of the paragraph.

This book is supposed to be a simple work for women in order to encourage them in a sophisticated matter. However, she gives a massive space for political criticism over the emotional side which is supposed to overshadow all other parts. In the above quote, the two phrases ‗as in love‘ and ‗or amorous‘ are vainly put into a paragraph which mainly emphasizes the political weaknesses of Arabs. The two expressions are put between two commas as a way to show that these problems are less serious compared to those of politics. In a point of fact, the whole work is structured in the same form, that is, politics come first.

Mosteghanemi transports from history to the present times to continue her revolutionary attitude towards politics and leaders. The writer continues to dramatize the miserable situation in the Arab world which has been caused mainly by politicians. A common citizen would never expect the high level of wretchedness in this world who suffered a lot before. This book clarifies those normally hidden ideas. The writer admits that she was not expecting to have great support for such theme. She wonders:

The most important discovery is that those who are eager to read about

forgetting are more compared to those who want to read about love. All

people that I have thought they were happy; they enthusiastically joined the

party of forgetting. Is the emotional misery in the Arab world that huge? (32)

The writer here metaphorically refers to the political misery rather than that which is caused by love and relationships. As she goes on with the events of the story, the writer becomes more open about criticizing the distressed status in the Arabic world with major focus on leaders. She shows a great deal of hatred to those rulers who persecuted the rights of individuals and purchased their economic, social, and political rights.

Nessyane.com is a sheltering title to speak about how societies are forced to forgetabout injustice and wrong actions. Between memory and forgetting lies the core of this work. This correlative binary symbolizes the heart of this book. Memory, in this sense, refers to the corrupted history which should be passed by while forgetting, as one aspect of memory, paves the way for a period of new political and social spirit. In this respect, Mosteghanemi

Longley expresses the implicit relationship between forgetting and those considerable innuendos. She states: ―I bet that this party will gain support from the Arabic rulers because they will expect us to forget, among the things that will be forgotten, since when he and his retinue are governing us, how much he licked his hands from our blood. Let them think that we forgot‖.

(33)

The reader gets different responses when he goes through the sections of the work.

On the one hand, you may get an impression of comicality about the topic. On the other hand,

the reader may sympathize with the writer and realizes that there is a bigger reality than the

one which is delivered through media and speeches. This does nothing but emphasizes the political aims behind this book.

Mosteghanemi implicitly believes that forgetting a man is a silly object which can be handled, and here shows her sarcasm and mockery. But when she relates ‗forgetting‘ to politics, she embraces a pessimist sad tone and words that typify the situation. In a way to describe reasons behind such emotionally disastrous state of mind in the Arabic world, the writer says:

We need to restore our emotional recovery as a one Arabic nation. We have

always suffered from unsuccessful love stories, including the love for our

countries which never offered love back. Only then, we will recover from

our chronic fragility. We are weakened by the destruction in us… those

vulgar channels that are found to occupy us from the big issues and provide

us with cheap love and miserable emotions, so they leave us with a struggle

of the despotic beloved … and forgetting about the other kinds of despotism.

(33)

People are not conscious about the real policies in their nations. A layman who lives in the Arab world does not look for much to live. So, he can be easily deluded. The writer groups love stories, the struggle to forget, cheap media, and ‗sweet tyranny‘ as the main causes for such stupid struggle. ‗How can an individual think if he is bombarded by all these tempting tricks‘, she wonders. The case is that similar in western societies during postmodernism. The American individual is also becoming sillier; he is more concerned with the measly media and

frivolous issues. According to Shenkman, the present American society is stupid and there are five defining characteristics of stupidity:

First, is sheer ignorance: Ignorance of critical facts about important events in

the news, and ignorance of how our government functions and who's in

charge. Second, is negligence: The disinclination to seek reliable sources of

information about important news events. Third, is wooden-headedness, as

the historian Barbara Tuchman defined it: The inclination to believe what we

want to believe regardless of the facts. Fourth, is shortsightedness: The

support of public policies that are mutually contradictory, or contrary to the

country's long-term interests. Fifth, and finally, is a broad category I call

bone-headedness, for want of a better name: The susceptibility to

meaningless phrases, stereotypes, irrational biases, and simplistic diagnoses

(7) and solutions that play on our hopes and fears.

As the writer keeps on referring to politics, she depends on different techniques. As a postmodernist escort, irony is always present in such writings. Mosteghanemi uses this technique constantly to criticize political leaders and their effusive rules. Certainly, the ironic tone in this book is not meant for mocking for the sake of mocking. Postmodernist irony embraces deeper questions. It is a shifting method to express reality. Irony has the quality of making fun of a serious matter. Irony in postmodernism and in literature in general, ―uses words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning. It is a technique of

(8) indicating‖.

The writer begins her book with a contradictory statement which puts the reader into a controversial state. She declares: ―I dedicate my book first to those who pirate my works…

I owe them my popularity… glory to thieves... all of them. This is the age of the light-fingered age, not the inky-fingered‖ (7). The writer here ironically sheds light on the prevalence of rulers who use the public money for their personal good. There is a remarkable emphasis from the writer on the issue of theft. The ellipsis which precedes the phrase of ‗glory to thieves‘ indicates the existence of a noteworthy statement. In a way to eliminate any literary dereliction, the writer uses ‗all of them‘ to explicitly inform the reader that she looks for including another group of burglars. It is pretty obvious that the writer addresses the unfaithful leaders.

In a certain part of the book, the writer ironically describes the process of elections in the Arab countries. In many countries elections are considered to be the perfect frame to achieve democracy, but in the Arab world they usually go with deception. Practically, the result of any election is already known. According to her, this process is a preconceived result:

―I am quite sure that if I run into election in Lebanon I will overrun the political arena … I do not buy less than an overwhelming victory. Plus, the overwhelming victory is a fundamental right in our Arabic democracy‖ (314). In an implicit way, Mosteghanemi sets out her opinion about elections in the Arabic world. From that, the reader concludes that elections lack democracy and truthfulness.

The situation of the Arabic woman is compared to that of politics. More explicitly, she regards that women are as oppressed by the patriarchal society as the countries are chagrined by their rulers. In different instances, the writer metaphorically addresses the

beloved man as the tyrant governor. The writer counts on this image in order to fulfill several

issues at once. It is clear that the writer does not aim at producing a full political work. The mixture between political reference and female issues is practically fruitful for the writer.

In a well-structured puzzle, the book balances between women, politics, leaders and men. The writer establishes her female tips on a political base. In one example, Mosteghanemi builds a clear simile between the Arabic woman and the Arabic society. She says: ―the

Arabic woman is exactly like the Arab societies, she was raised up by a ruling father. So, she did not recognize other symbols of manhood except rulers who went grey on their chairs‖

(109). In this comparison, Mosteghanemi refers back to Arabic societies which believe that only longevity equals wisdom.

In this regard, the writer attempts to address this stereotyped belief. The writer goes to western politics in order to prove her position. She backs up her female notifications with examples from foreign political culture. Mosteghanemi takes Barack Obama and Dmitri

(9) Medvedev as examples for the successful leaders who could run great countries despite the fact that they are young: ―for god sake, don‘t you find this lean man as a dark horse … a

‗sexy‘ man when he runs to the platform speech? Have you seen an Arabic president runs like that? and that graceful Russian boy ... don‘t you find his look and smile so enticing … the

Arabic woman does not want boys … but she finally gets a man out of clinics‖ (110). In this example, the writer intentionally refers to the issue of aged presidents who still run the countries. She uses eluding similes in order to criticize this long-standing ideology in the

Arabic world. Mosteghanemi calls for a mental re-consideration. People should start thinking about electing younger presidents who can understand and serve the aspirations of young people.

In the same vein, she deals also with the false speeches and stupid promises of leaders. They are the same as those moronic words which make women fall: ―my friend is just a sample to thousands of Arabic women who offer their years as an oblation for a man who gave nothing but some empty promises‖ (45). There is a clear reference here to the leaders who have historically broken their electoral promises. Millions of words were just said for the sake of getting more votes because the man ―is a prisoner of his temper, his previous ideas, his complexities, and his personal aspirations‖ (54).

In different instances, Mosteghanemi joins irony, politics, and the general theme which is forgetting in one statement. She applies these elements in order to tackle the issues of democracy in the Arabic world. She ironically tells her female reader the following:

You enjoy a democratic love, in which you have the right to listen to a man

instead of him apologizing for his injustice and his mistrust. He is waiting

for you to apologize for something you don‘t even recognize … every

Arabic ruler suspects everything, and he does not expect anything but

intrigues and guiles from the closest people to him. (176)

The definition of democracy comes nowhere close to this statement. She sarcastically informs her readers that they lack democracy in love as well as in political matters.

It is fair to say that the writer succeeds to submit her political views and sarcastic criticism without losing that stereotypical image of her being as a feminist writer. In analyzing that, one might consider the reasons behind that. Why doesn‘t she address that issue of politics directly ? Ahlam Mosteghanemi leaves no space for wrong assumptions. She believes that

politics is a matter of limited freedom. The Arabic societies have not reached a stable level of democracy and politics still presents a tabooed topic to deal with.

The Algerian writer believes that writers in the Arab world do not enjoy a great space of freedom. Literature according to her is oppressed just like any other discipline. Writers cannot express their attitudes and their opinions the way they wish to. She embraces that position considering that many literary works have been banned from being published. These works run against the governmental ideologies.

Once again the reader comes across politics in this work. This time it is taken as a way to justify the lack of such works in Arabic literature. The writer herself is confined by the literary repression. She argues that ―this book opened my appetite to laugh. But, I have often suppressed my desire to make fun of politics or women so as not to be prevented in the whole

Arabic world‖ (40). The writer here uses the word ‗suppressed‘ to make the reader aware that she is suffering as a writer from political boundaries. Even the word ‗women‘ in this quote is irrelevant. No literary work was banned because of its female topics. The writer plays well on the chord of politics without showing an outright position. A work of such a silly topic can never be taken to bear this political intensity.

Nessyane.com is a book of a political discourse, to say the least. The writer howevergoes beyond those political references. It is not a descriptive book; it is a book of an argumentative nature. Mosteghanemi seeks social and political change through this book. This appears most through the motivational language she uses. The writer urges her readers to look for political democracy and social stability. To do so, she depends on slogans and expressions that are related to revolutions and upheavals. The writer supports the Arabic reader to rise

against oppression and homogeneity of the ruler. ―With blood and steel we redeem you (10) forgetting!‖ is a title for a section in which the writer insists on forgetting the bounds of history and look forward to build a modern political arena in which democracy, liberty, and equality are principles.

Mosteghanemi demands revolutionary change even it carries brutal conflicts.

Common people should revolt in order to escape the atrocious treatment of the government.

Probably, the state of politics in the Arabic world is over-pictured. But, she succeeds to some extent to scope the disregarded rights of the Arabic individual. As one of the examples, she states: ―let us go on a women‘s demonstration to call for forgetting since it is another face for imperialism‖ (75). When two words such as ‗demonstration‘ and ‗imperialism‘ are related, there should be some political subject in between. In the middle of all these political description, how can she call for a women‘s manifestation?

In a very dramatic expression, the writer clarifies to her readers that their attachment to memory, which is in fact a symbol for the historical entities, is a mere stupidity.

Mosteghanemi agrees on the notion that sufferance comes by choice. She maintains: ―you have to re-consider your relationship with pain because the latter is not a destiny, it is a choice‖

(72). The sentence holds a periphrasis to denote that the Arabic individual ought to have second thought on their social situation. They must believe that they can change their society through creating stable democratic politics.

The writer has chosen the quotation of Obama‘s campaign ‗yes we can‘ in order to drive the Arabs into a high level of confidence. The writer here adopts an American attitude in order to convince the reader about the possibility of change: ―if Obama had been able to

change his historical position from being a slave into a president of the greatest nations in the world, then you can get rid of the slavery of man as well. Slavery is just a voluntarily choice to put yourself in a constant state of waiting‖ (181). This statement is another declaration that

Arabs may also change their miserable state into a more stabilized one. In a certain way, this brings back to the reader that sense of the early postmodernist absurdism and more specifically, ―Waiting for Godot‖ (1953) by Samuel Beckett. Waiting for the future seems to be a noticeable characteristic in postmodernism. The postmodernist individual is a type of character that carelessly addresses life; he may seek change, but he does nothing to gain it.

This book does not differ much from the late Arabic literary works. Many writers have produced conversional works about politics and leaders. Egyptian writers take the credit for starting such wave of political literature in these late years. Popular poets like Hichem Al-

(11) Jakh and Ahmed Fouad Najm have broken the line of the main stream literature. Their poems are peppered with a sense of protesting. The poems of Al-Jakh have gained great success especially among youth generations. His poem ―Joha‖ (2009) has gained a massive popularity in Egypt: ―It is a silly feeling /to feel that your country is something weak /your voice is weak /your opinion is weak /You sell your heart and your body/ And you sell your

(12) pen and your name/ Our dignity is offended‖.

Using her usual feminist approach, Mosteghanemi intelligently provokes the same thoughts of Al-Jakh and Najm. She calls for a change. The writer even expects the reaction of the Arabic individual to certain notifications. She addresses him positively to remind him that change requires sacrifices. This change would carry problematic tensions. But, a long stable life is worth a short time of struggle. She states: ―forgetting does not offer flowers right in the

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first season. It needs two chapters before it gives result. It presents thorns at the beginning …

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there is no beautiful or quick forgetting… you have to gain it with blood and tears‖ (73). The words in this book stimulate the desire to revolutionize. She uses in this book a network of reasons, methods, and results of revolution. Namely, she sets the scenery for the audience. She depends on a detailed description to inform the reader about the situation. Then, she appeals uprising which seeks change. Finally, she assures the reader that the struggle which would certainly come after revolution is temporary.

Nessyane.com shows that Mosteghanemi cannot escape being shaped by politicaldiscourse. Politics in her works presents the raw material on which the other parts are built. Whether the general theme is romance, history, or gender, politics is always present.

However, she has twisted the united definition of political literature by not tackling a pure political theme in this book.

It is unquestionable that Mosteghanemi wanted this book to be a political guide for her readers in the Arabic world. She criticizes leaders and highlights their unforgiving decisions which created a society that is full of failures and trifles. She declares in the very first pages of the work that she seeks political change. She admits: ―before these masses that look forward to forget, who fight to break free from the slaving memory, I expect that this book goes beyond its love goals to reach serious political aspirations‖ (32).

It is an inescapable fact that she protests political trends in her work. But, what are the political aspirations that the writer looks for? What are the aftershocks of this work? This statement actually bears the deepness of the whole work. The time this work was published,

Arabic literature has grown from being critical to being motivational. Writers gradually

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engaged into a pessimist state when they have found that there is a miserable reality behind the deceiving media and the empty speeches.

The political intensity in these works had a great influence on readers who revolutionized against their governments. It is fair to say that the late Arabic literature is partially responsible for launching the revolutionary movement of ‗Arab Spring‘ which has started in several Arab countries since 2010. Arab spring was a result of ―a gradual succession of generations of writer who wrote about freedom, dignity, social equality and liberalism.

(13) Each generation has contributed in creating the environment for today‘s revolution‖.

Arabic literature has participated in a great level in launching these massive revolutions.

According to Voltring, writers have created a literature that is characterized by a

―personal creativity that is outside the governmental system … This has given them another dimension to get more engaged with the problems of the laymen and to divest the practices of (14) the political authorities‖. Public opinion gets more affected by literature than by any other tool. Literary works always produce higher influence than any other kinds of speech. As

Chinua Achebe says, ―Storytelling are [sic] a threat. They threaten all champions of control (15) … in state, in church or mosque, in party congress, in the university or wherever‖.

Literature is always present in political struggles whether as a cause, a frame or as an indirect historian. Nessyane.com seems to hold the first characteristic. Of course, it would not be logical to argue that Nessyane.com or its writer is the only reason for the launching this movement. But, the writer contributes massively in confirming the ideas of previous literature.

The book claims the same rights that have been demanded in the movement. The protestors have showed opposition to leaders who practice dictatorship which is shadowed by democracy

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and legible elections. Arabs have aspired to open a new page in the political history and to move away from the dictatorial regimes that failed to achieve development. What

Mosteghanemi wanted from her book is the same as what thousands of people have wished when they decided to rise against their government. Forgetting is a comprehensive expression that perfectly suits the essence of such movements. The good thing about this book is that the writer depends on other resources in playing around politics and its secrets.

Mosteghanemi has managed to twist a well-known literature according to what her readers are accustomed to expect, but also maintaining her political goals. She has respectively succeeded in projecting politics through a love light. The reader cannot expect the political affluence in her work because she presents this issue through a complete different scope. She has figured out a way to speak about politics without seeming to do that.

Nessyane.com is a work of art that takes one thing and makes something else of it.

Politics might be the ‗main object‘ but certainly not the obvious one. She demonstrates recognizable reality about political concerns without being too open about it. How can a writer who states that she has decided to stay away from any political drama to be so political in her writings? Let the answer be in a postmodernist frame: Mosteghanemi portrays politics by avoiding it.

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Notes and References:

(1) An armed conflict between the Algerian government and various Islamist rebel groups which began in 1991. Total casualties have yet to be accurately counted but it is estimated to have cost somewhere between 44,000 and 150,000 lives. (Accessed: 3 May.

2015, Wikipedia.org)

(2) An Algerian soldier. He participated in Setif and Guelma Massacre in 1945. He has also participated in founding the largest political party in Algeria: FLN.

(3) Ahlam Mosteghanemi, Nessyane.com (Beirut: Dar Al-Adab, 2009).

(4) ―Postmodern History,‖All about World Views, n.d: n.pag, Web, 13 Jan.2015.

(5) A religious and Islamist political leader in Sudan. He has been called "one of the most influential figures in modern Sudanese politics", and a "longtime hard-line ideological leader". (Accessed: 15 April. 2015, Wikipedia.org)

(6) An Israeli politician. The sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel.

(7) st Rick Shenkman, ―Ignorant America: Just How Stupid Are We?‖ Tomdispatch, 1

July 2008: n.pag, Web, 22 May 2015.

(8) Ray Kishan Singh, ―Humour, Irony and Satire,‖ International Journal of

Englishand Literature, 3:4, Oct 2012: 65:72, Web, 29 Feb. 2015.

(9) Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev is the tenth Prime Minister of Russia, incumbent since 2012. He previously served as the third President of Russia, from 2008 to 2012.

(Accessed: 17 May 2015, Wikipedia.org)

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(10) Title of a section in the book of Nessyane.com. Page: 83.

(11) A contemporary Egyptian Poet. He has about 30 poems. Most of them are written with an Egyptian colloquial language.

(12) Hichem Al-Jakh, ―Joha,‖ Traidnt, 12 March 2012: n.pag, Web, 7 April 2015.

(13) Amjad Nasser, ―Riwayat Aala Haffat El-Rabie El-Arabi,‖ [Novels on the Edge of the Arab Spring] Al-Jazeera.net, 29. Sep 2011: n.pag, Web, 27 March 2015.

(14) Voltering, qtd.in Nasr Eddine Al-Dabji, ―Al-Adab Sahama fi Shararat El-Rabie El- Arabi,‖ [literature has contributed in launching the Arab Spring] Al-Jazeera.net, 5 Oct. 2012: n.pag, Web, 14 Feb.2015.

(15) Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah (UK: Heinemann, 1987): 141.

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General Conclusions:

Literature in the Arab World has lost its historical importance. Despite the artistic sense in modern Arabic literature and the multiplicity of styles and topics, the turnout is too weak. Writers now do get attention only from bookworms or literary critics. The late Arabic literature enjoys a delicate spotlight despite the creative diversity which the writers have attempted to accomplish. When literature is not appreciated in its national borders, how can one expect it to be influential at the universal level?

The late Arabic literature still creates a situation of mystery to many readers. There is a remarkable absence of sources about literary works. Even Ahlam Mosteghanemi, the most famous writer in the Arab world, is not known for her works. During the process of making this research, it has been noticed that she is famous by name not works. To put it in other words, the Arabic reader conceptualizes his literary ideas from the audience not the writer himself. Whenever a question is raised about Mosteghanemi, the reader goes in one direction: feminism.

After scrutinizing the work of Ahlam Mosteghanemi, it appeared that the latter is not as feminist as it seems. Those fragmented thoughts, ironical statements and inconsistent views pave the way for her postmodernist shift. The remarkable issue however about Mosteghanemi, or any other postmodernist Arabic writer, is the creative spirit. This writer has not only embraced the literary postmodernist peculiarities, she has also challenged that by creating some personal techniques. These originative ideas stand as a line between Arabic postmodernism and western postmodernism.

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Before moving further with the findings of this research, readers of this work should note that the use of the expression ‗Arabic postmodernism‘ is not arbitrary. It is consciously chosen to differentiate it from the western postmodernism. The historical backgrounds of the movements vary completely. The Arabic individual has been oppressed by the devastating events of the period following independence. While in the west, people have been bombarded by the events of WWII and aftermath.

Western postmodernists have dealt with politics in every discipline. They have shown great dissatisfaction with the world politics. That conflict was shown ironically- most of the time through paintings and literary works. Similarly, Arabic postmodernist writers have also tackled this issue, but there is a slight difference between the two. Western postmodernists do not seek any change. They consciously celebrate the chaos. Their works are of a descriptive nature, to say the least. Different from that, Arabic Postmodernists want change and seek social and political reformation. In other words, it can be said that writers in the Arab world is more committed to the national problems. This idea appears in the case study which has been adopted in this dissertation. Mosteghanemi, as any other postmodernist Arabic writer, is committed to her society. She places a high importance to the social struggles of her readers.

Whereas western postmodernist writers embrace those devastating events which caused social and psychological disorder as an inspiring source for their writings, Arabic writers consider these problematic issues as profoundly bothering. That is why postmodernist

Arabic writers put a huge emphasis on providing the reader with wisdom and advice. This statement may seem paradoxical because postmodernists usually do not call for stability. As a matter of fact, western writers seek chaos for chaos, but the Arabs call for chaos that brings

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change. Hence, western postmodernism has brought a sense of creativity while the Arabic one has raised social awareness.

Those political references in postmodernist writings may have unveiled the truth behind certain ‗narratives‘ in the western society. People no longer believe in the idealistic western society. But, the endless emphasis on politics in the Arabic postmodern texts has partially contributed in boosting up a sense of social uprising. Poets and writers of the postmodern era are socially popular. They have used this admiration to influence the reader and encourage him to use every possible way in order to get refined conditions.

These revolutionary concepts in literature have greatly influenced the Arabic individual who was already living a chained society. So, this has increased his Susceptibility to accept change and call for it. The result of these accumulated ideas was the most terrifying event in the Arab world that is, the Arab Spring in 2010. The continuous revolutions have put the

Arabic individual into a more devastating frame of mind. It has added fuel to fire by bringing a chaotic scene which over-steps any other past events. At the level of literature, works have become more fragmented and ridiculous. But, they do not fit into the classical zone of postmodernist literature. Based on that, this dissertation claims the existence of another literary movement in Arabic literature. However, it is for the next generations to coin a term and to gather its full characteristics.

Given these points, it should be noticed that Ahlam Mosteghanemi, despite her feminist standpoints, should now be ranked among postmodernist writers in the Arab world. It must be stated also that postmodernism is still an ambiguous phenomenon. It needs more researches and studies to figure out a stable, meaningful scope for it. This dissertation is a first step in a

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long puzzle. Hundreds of studies are required to fulfil the complete image about Arabic postmodernism and the following periods.

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Bibliography:

I. Primary Sources:

Mosteghanemi, Ahlam. Nessyane.com. Beirut: Dar Al-Adab, 2009. Print.

II. Secondary Sources:

1. Books:

Anderson, Perry. The Origins of Postmodernity. London: Verso, 1998. Print.

Bahgat, Ahmed. Fasting and God Knows. Egypt: Dar Al-Shorok, 1988. Print.

Beckett, Lucy. Wallas Stevens. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1974. Print.

Connor, Steven. The Cambridge Introduction to Postmodernism. New York: Cambridge

University Press, 2004. Print.

Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetic of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. London, New

York: Routledge, 1988. Print.

---, The Politics of Postmodernism. London: Routledge, 1989. Print.

McHale, Brian. Postmodernist Fiction. London, New York: Metheun & Co.Ltd, 1996.

Print.

Morawski, Stephan. The Troubles with Postmodernism. London, New York: Routledge,

1996. Print.

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Muelhoff, Tim and Todd V. Lewis, Authentic Communication: Christian Speech Engaging

Culture. US: IVP Academic, 2010. Print. Christian World View Integration.

Roger, Allen. An Introduction to Arabic Literature. New York: Cambridge University

Press, 2000. Print.

Wannous, Saad Allah. Bayanat Limasrah Arabi Jadid. Beirut: Dar Al-Fikr Al-Jadid, 1988.

Print.

a. Reviews:

Tarbush, Susannah. Chocolate is Your Weapon. Rev.of Nessayne.com, by Ahlam

Mosteghanemi. Banipal Magazine of Modern Arab Literature. n.d. n.pag. Web. 9

Oct. 2014.

2. Essays and Articles:

Barnes, L.Philip. ―Late Modern Diversity.‖ Education, Religion and Diversity: Developing

a New Model of Religious Education. London, New York: Routledge, 2014. 44.

Print.

3. Online materials:

a. Essays:

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Hassan, Ihab. ―From Postmodernism to Postmodernity: the Local/ Global Context.‖ Ihab

Hassan Biography & Index. n.d. n.pag. Web. 23 Dec.2014.

b. Articles:

―Ahlam Mosteghanemi.‖ Arab World Books. n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2015.

Hammour, Ghaith. ―El-Shohra El-Kadiba, El-Tawadoe El-Adabi, wa Ghiyab El-

Mokhayila. Ahlam Mosteghanemi Namudaj.‖ Arageek 23 January 2015: n.pag.

Web. 30 Jan.2015.

Heise, Ursula. ―Between Technophobia and Utopia: Science and Postmodern Literature.‖

21C 3:2. n.d: n.pag. Web. 17 Dec.2014.

Kirby, Alan. ―The Death of Postmodernism and beyond.‖ Philosophy Now Nov-Dec 2006:

n.pag. Web. 20 April 2015.

Mendible, Myra, ―High theory/ Low Culture: Postmodernism and the Politics of Carnival.‖

Journal of American Culture 22:2 (1991): 71-75. Web. 16 May 2015.

Nasser, Amjad. ―Riwayat Aala Haffat El-Rabie El-Arabi.‖ Al-Jazeera.net 29. Sep 2011:

n.pag.Web. 27 March 2015.

―Postmodern History.‖ All about World Views. n.d. n.pag. Web.13 Jan.2015.

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Rick Shenkman. ―Ignorant America: Just How Stupid Are We?‖ Tomdispatch 1 July

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2008: n.pag, Web, 22 May 2015

Shoomp Editorial Team. ―Postmodern Literature Characteristics.‖ Shoomp.com 11 Nov.

2008: n.pag. Web. 9 May 2015.

Singh, Ray Kishan. Introduction. ―Humour, Irony and Satire.‖ International Journal of

English and Literature 3:4: Oct 2012: 65-72. Web.29 Feb. 2015.

Temple,Emily. ―An Essential Postmodern Reading List.‖ Flavorwire 8 February 2012:

n.pag. Web. 18 Feb.2015.

Voltering. qtd.in Al-Dabji, Nasr Eddine. ―Al-Adab Sahama fi Shararat El-Rabie El-Arabi.‖

Al-Jazeera.net 5

Oct. 2012: n.pag. Web. 14 Feb.2015.

3. Novels:

Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah. UK: Heinemann, 1987. Print.

Alaidy, Ahmed. An Takoun Abbes El-Abd. Egypt: Al-Karma, 2006. Print.

Bahgat, Ahmed. Fasting and God Knows. Egypt: Dar Al-Shorok, 1988. Print.

Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five. New York: Delacorte, 1969. Print.

5. Poems:

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Abû Mâdi, Elia. ―Talaseem.‖ Al-Khamail. Beirut: Dar El-Ilm Lilmalayeen, 1940. Pdf.file.

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Al-Jakh, Hichem. ―Joha.‖ Traidnt 12 March 2012: n.pag. Web. 7 April 2015.

6. Published Interviews:

Al-Badri, Sami. Interview by Hassen Merabet. El-Chorouk Online 15 March 2015. Web.

15 March 2015.

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Appendices:

Book Summary:

Nessyane.com by the Algerian writer Ahlam Mosteghanemi is the first part of aquadripartite work entitled ‗the Four Seasons of Love‘. This first ‗season‘ was published in

2009 by Dar Al-Adab, Beirut. Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing has published an

English version of this book under the title The Art of Forgetting. It is translated by Raphael

Cohen. The work cannot be classified under any of the conventional genres of literary texts. It does not offer an easy resolution at any level because it does not fit into the traditional frame of novels or short stories. It is a mixture of everything. It seems to be an anthology of different stories.

Out of some tangling events, Mosteghanemi embraces one theme that is: forgetting.

Basically, the book is intended to provide tips on how to forget the frantic memories and to go for a new life. The book is divided into ten parts; each contains several stories, anecdotes, and pieces of advice. The idea behind this work makes it look like those help-books which appeared in the US in the last decades. However, those deep sub-themes make it inequitable to rank it among this genre as well. Love and relationships are just a covering shell to speak about political, economic, and social degeneration.

If there is something to be confirmed about this work, would be inconsistency. This makes it hard to come with a reasonable summary of the book. The previous points provide only some hints about this work. In brief, the book is a box which gathers all the possible

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contradictions. So, further readings are recommended in order to be acquainted with its mysteries and pitfalls may be.

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(21) El-Washahi works.

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(22) Sami Mohammad Works.

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(23) Some works of Ismail Shammout.

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(25) A work by Layla Shawa.

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