Blogging from Egypt Edinburgh Studies in Modern Arabic Literature Series Editor: Rasheed El-Enany Writing Beirut: Mappings of the City in the Modern Arabic Novel Samira Aghacy Autobiographical Identities in Contemporary Arab Literature Valerie Anishchenkova The Iraqi Novel: Key Writers, Key Texts Fabio Caiani and Catherine Cobham Sufism in the Contemporary Arabic Novel Ziad Elmarsafy Gender, Nation and the Arabic Novel: Egypt 1892–2008 Hoda Elsadda The Unmaking of the Arab Intellectual: Prophecy, Exile and the Nation Zeina G. Halabi Post-War Anglophone Lebanese Fiction: Home Matters in the Diaspora Syrine Hout Prophetic Translation: The Making of Modern Egyptian Literature Maya I. Kesrouany Nasser in the Egyptian Imaginary Omar Khalifah Conspiracy in Modern Egyptian Literature Benjamin Koerber War and Occupation in Iraqi Fiction Ikram Masmoudi Literary Autobiography and Arab National Struggles Tahia Abdel Nasser The ArabNahdah : The Making of the Intellectual and Humanist Movement Abdulrazzak Patel Blogging from Egypt: Digital Literature, 2005–2016 Teresa Pepe Sonallah Ibrahim: Rebel with a Pen Paul Starkey Minorities in the Contemporary Egyptian Novel Mary Youssef edinburghuniversitypress.com/series/smal Blogging from Egypt Digital Literature, 2005–2016 Teresa Pepe Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © Teresa Pepe, 2019 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in Adobe Garamond by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4744 3399 0 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 3401 0 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 3402 7 (epub) The right of Teresa Pepe to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). Contents List of Figures vi Series Editor’s Foreword vii Acknowledgements x Note on Transliteration and Translation xiii Introduction: Egyptian Blogs Between Fiction and Autobiography 1 1 Arabic Literature Goes Digital 28 2 The Paratext of Egyptian Blogs 48 3 Mixed Arabic as a Subversive Literary Style 94 4 When Writers Activate Readers 123 5 Bytes of Freedom: Fictionalised Bodies in the Egyptian Blogosphere 150 6 Blogging a Revolution: From Utopia to Dystopia 190 Conclusion: A New Literary Genre and a Social Uprising 215 Works Cited 221 Index 242 Figures 1 Header of the blog Wassiʿ Khayalak (Widen Your Imagination) by Ahmed Naji 51 2 Header of the blog Ma Bada Li by Amr Ezzat 55 3 Banner of the blog Ma3t’s Bits and Pieces 61 4 Mona Seif’s profile picture 61 5 Emraamethlya’s profile picture 64 6 Header of the blog Al-Kanaba al-Hamra by Bilal Husni 71 7 Bilal Husni’s profile picture 71 8 Cover image of the blog Yawmiyyat ʿAnis 74 9 Cover of the book Yawmiyyat ʿAnis by Abeer Soliman, 2010 74 10 Mona Seif writes Arabic with childish handwriting 111 11 On Losing Your Virginity 1, by Mona Seif 156 12 On Losing Your Virginity 2, by Mona Seif 156 13 Things I have to do (as an adult), by Mona Seif 156 14 Things I have to do (as a child), by Mona Seif 156 15 Self-portrait by Mona Seif 157 16 The virtual table in the real world 191 vi Series Editor’s Foreword dinburgh Studies in Modern Arabic Literature is a new and unique series Ethat will, it is hoped, fill in a glaring gap in scholarship in the field of modern Arabic literature. Its dedication to Arabic literature in the modern period, that is, from the nineteenth century onwards, is what makes it unique among series undertaken by academic publishers in the English-speaking world. Individual books on modern Arabic literature in general or aspects of it have been and continue to be published sporadically. Series on Islamic studies and Arab/Islamic thought and civilisation are not in short supply either in the academic world, but these are far removed from the study of Arabic literature qua literature, that is, imaginative, creative literature as we understand the term when, for instance, we speak of English literature or French literature. Even series labelled ‘Arabic/Middle Eastern Literature’ make no period distinction, extending their purview from the sixth century to the present and often including non-Arabic literatures of the region. This series aims to redress the situation by focusing on the Arabic literature and criticism of today, stretching its interest to the earliest beginnings of Arab modernity in the nineteenth century. The need for such a dedicated series, and generally for the redoubling of scholarly endeavour in researching and introducing modern Arabic literature to the Western reader, has never been stronger. Among activities and events heightening public, let alone academic, interest in all things Arab, and not least Arabic literature, is the significant growth in the last decades of the translation of contemporary Arab authors from all genres, especially fiction, into English; the higher profile of Arabic literature internationally since the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Naguib Mahfouz in 1988; the growing number of Arab authors living in the Western diaspora and writing vii viii | BLOGGING FROM EGYPT both in English and Arabic; the adoption of such authors and others by main- stream, high-circulation publishers, as opposed to the academic publishers of the past; the establishment of prestigious prizes, such as the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) (the Arabic Booker), run by the Man Booker Foundation, which brings huge publicity to the shortlist and winner every year, as well as translation contracts into English and other languages; and, very recently, the events of the Arab Spring. It is therefore part of the ambi- tion of this series that it will increasingly address a wider reading public beyond its natural territory of students and researchers in Arabic and world literature. Nor indeed is the academic readership of the series expected to be confined to specialists in literature in the light of the growing trend for inter- disciplinarity, which increasingly sees scholars crossing field boundaries in their research tools and coming up with findings that equally cross discipline borders in their appeal. When we think Arabic literature, we think books, publication, distribution, reader reception, critical reception, to the end of stages and processes associ- ated with print. This book looks for Arabic literature elsewhere, and extends research in the subject into territories as yet little trodden: those of digital lit- erature, where the author is also the publisher; where publication is simulta- neous with the act of creation; where distribution is worldwide and cost-free; where censorship, if an issue, is bypassed; where a first-time author stands as much of chance of being published as those renowned and established; where readers are interactive and can instantaneously make their views known to the author who also can if he/she wishes enter into conversation with them; where all the author needs to publish and all the reader needs to receive is a computer and connection to the Internet: we are in the realm of digital literature and particularly blogging, the subject of this monograph, which traces the emergence of the phenomenon internationally, harking back to its print premonitions such as autofiction and theoretical germination, before turning its focus on the evolution and development of literary blogging in Egypt from the beginnings of the twenty-first century and up to the Egyptian uprising of 25 January 2011 which toppled the autocratic regime of Hosni Mubarak. Examined in the book is the role of blogging in the years leading up to the uprising, with its pronounced political and social criticism and calls series editor’s foreword | ix for reform, tolerance and pluralism both in the political establishment and in social attitudes. In this book we are afforded a rare direct glimpse into a powerful, if short-lived, literary phenomenon that broke away from literary conventions as we have known them for centuries. Professor Rasheed El-Enany, Series Editor, Emeritus Professor, University of Exeter Acknowledgements would like to express my gratitude to the people who have accompanied I me on this journey, and without whose help I would not have been able to reach the final destination. My first word of thanks goes to the series editor Rasheed El-Enany, who has supported this project with enthusiasm and has provided constructive comments and suggestions throughout this process. Many thanks also to his editorial team, in particular to Kirsty Woods, Nicola Ramsey and Rebecca Mackenzie. I would also like to thank Stephan Guth and Yves Gonzalez-Quijano for supervising this research project at the University of Oslo. Stephan has welcomed this project with great academic curiosity and has contributed to it with inspiring suggestions, as well as immense attention to details and, not least, his great sense of humour. Yves has engaged with me in long Skype conversations that have always been inspiring and thought-provoking. I also wish to express my gratitude to Tarek el-Ariss, Tetz Rooke, Ferial Ghazoul, Francesca Corrao, Gunvor Mejdell, Rana Issa, Wael Philip Gallab, Moumita Sen, Gennaro Gervasio, Mona Abdel-Fadil, Bjørn Olav Utvik, Albrecht Hofheinz, Saphinaz Amal Naguib, Helge Jordheim and Abeer Salama, for contributing to this project with invaluable feedback. This book would not have been written without the help of the bloggers, who dedicated their time to this research even in periods of stress and anxiety due to the unstable political situation in Egypt.