Literary Encounters with America in Arabic Literature
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Writing Amrika: Literary Encounters with America in Arabic Literature The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Smith, Benjamin Lenox. 2014. Writing Amrika: Literary Encounters with America in Arabic Literature. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:13095487 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Writing Amrık Literary Encounters with America in Arabic Literature A dissertation presented by Benjamin Lenox Smith to The Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In the subject of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts August 2014 © 2014 Benjamin Lenox Smith All rights reserved. Prof. William E. Granara Benjamin Lenox Smith Writing Amrık Literary Encounters with America in Arabic Literature Abstract My dissertation, Writing Amrık: Literary Encounters with America in Arabic Literature is an examination of this cross-cultural literary encounter primarily through fictional prose written in Arabic from the beginning of the 20th century into the 21st century. The texts studied in this dissertation are set in America, providing a unique entry point into questions about how Arab authors choose to represent Arab characters experiencing their American surroundings. While each text is treated as a unique literary production emerging from a contingent historical moment, an attempt is made to highlight the continuities and ruptures that exist in both the content and form of these texts spanning a century of the Arab literary experience with America. I argue that this body of literature can be understood through its own literary history of the American encounter in Arabic literature; a literary history in dialogue with an East-West encounter that has more frequently represented the western ‘Other’ through European characters and locales. In focusing on the process of identification by Arab characters in America this dissertation argues that the American encounter initiates a particular ambivalence resulting in multiple, and often contradictory, identifications on behalf of the Arab characters which result in poignant crises and strained narrative resolutions. iii To Alison for her constant support To my parents for their unwavering confidence To Prof. Granara for his relentless encouragement iv Table of Contents Abstract ………………………………………………………………………………… iii Table of Contents ………………………………………………………………………. v Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………. 1 Chapter 1: Historical Realities and Theoretical Directions of the American Encounter in Arabic Literature The East-West Dynamic in Modern Arabic Literature: An Overview …………………………….. 12 The History of Arab Contact with America …………………………………………………. 28 Theoretical Trajectories of the Encounter …………………………………………………….. 40 Chapter 2: Texts of the Mahjar; Paradigms of Encounter Early Fictional Prose Encounters …………………………………………………………… 52 Ameen Rihani …………………………………………………………………………… 54 The Book of Khalid ……………………………………………………………………… 57 The Book of Khalid as a Multicultural Text ………………………………………………… 64 Binaries and Anxieties of the Encounter; Synthesizing East and West …………………………… 70 fiAbd al-Ması˛ ˘addd …………………………………………………………………… 78 ˘ikyt al-Mahjar (Stories in Exile) ……………………………………………………… 79 fiAbd al-Fi†ra (Slave to Instinct): The Divided Self …………………………………………… 82 al-√Amal wal-Alam (Hope and Pain): The Pains of Assimilation ……………………………… 87 Timthl al-˘urriyya (The Statue of Liberty): Gender Identifications and Assimilation .…………… 91 Mikh√ıl Nufiayma ……………………………………………………………………… 95 Sfiat al-K‹uk‹u (The Cuckoo Clock): Broken Dreams and Literary Anxieties …………………… 98 Summary: The Earliest Literary Encounters with America ……………………………………107 Chapter 3: Post-67 American Encounters; A New Ideological and Political Consciousness Bridging the Gap from Nufiayma to Idrıs ……………………………………………………110 Literary Transitions in the Middle of the 20th Century ………………………………………113 Y‹usuf Idrıs …………………………………………………………………………… 116 New York 80 …………………………………………………………………………122 Clash and Crisis in New York 80 …………………………………………………………126 Encounter as Clash: Polemics, Binaries and Resolutions ……………………………………127 Encounter as Identity Crisis; The Protagonist’s Crumbling Fort ………………………………134 Identification through Cultural Narratives in New York 80 ……………………………………142 v Ra∂wa fi◊sh‹ur and al-Ri˛la ………………………………………………………………150 Early Identifications in al-Ri˛la……………………………………………………………153 Affiliations and Politics in America ………………………………………………………157 Ra∂wa’s Amrık through Subjective Ownership …………………………………………… 165 Literary Reengagement with American Post 1967 …………………………………………174 Chapter 4: Transnational Fictional Encounters Contemporary Literary Encounters with America ……………………………………………176 Sunallah Ibrahim ………………………………………………………………………179 Amrıknlı Summary …………………………………………………………………… 182 Interconnected Themes in Amrıknlı ………………………………………………………185 Professor Shukri: Between Egypt and America …………………………………………… 188 A Polyphony of American Voices ……………………………………………………… 197 The Geographical Encounter with America …………………………………………………203 Arab American Voices and Double Identity…………………………………………………210 fiAl al-Aswnı ……………………………………………………………………… 214 Chicago Summary ……………………………………………………………………… 215 The Polyphony of Egyptian Voices ……………………………………………………… 219 American Voices and Spatial Representations ……………………………………………… 226 Identity Negotiations and Narrative Resolutions ……………………………………………230 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………… 238 Works Cited ……………………………………………………………………… 244 vi Introduction The Statue of Liberty is the iconic symbol of American freedom and liberty, and its position in New York City’s harbor has, for decades, served to welcome the arrival of immigrant populations to America’s shores. The tabula ansata in the statue’s left hand evokes the codification of liberty and freedom adumbrated in the American Constitution, and the broken chains surrounding the statue’s feet evoke victory over tyranny. The statue’s position next to Ellis Island casts its symbolic presence over the very site of immigrant arrival, emitting this powerful message to the diverse cast of immigrants arriving on America’s shores. The Statue of Liberty perpetuates until the present day as a quintessential American symbol, abounding on stamps, official letterhead, and in miniature form in souvenir shops across the country. As with all symbols, the attempt to unify their meaning is constantly threatened by endeavors to change, subvert and impart new significances to canonical meanings, especially as unique subjectivities cast their gaze and reinterpret this statue. When Arab émigré populations began to settle in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with successive waves of migration occurring until the present day, this iconic statue would enter the prose of Arabic fiction and travel writing, and the contestation over it’s meaning would become merely one fascinating point of interest in the American encounter in modern Arabic literature. One of the first short stories ever composed in Arabic and set in America, by the Syrian émigré fiAbd al-Ması˛ ˘addd (1890-1963), culminates in a poignant and symbolic scene in Battery Park, New York City, circa 1920. It is from this precise location in Manhattan, where the Statue of Liberty is perfectly placed on the horizon, that 1 a Syrian émigré couple is locked in an impassioned argument. The wife, Adma, is excoriating her husband for having left their children alone at home and wandering out to the park. The husband, Nakhleh, is in such a state of dejection over his fate, that he is on the cusp of insanity, as his irresponsible actions toward his own children prove. Nakhleh is devastated by what he considers his emasculation in America; after living in America for a few years his wife Adma has emerged as the familial breadwinner, necessitating his transition to caregiver of the children. Adma’s success in peddling essentially eclipsed his ability to financially provide for the family, and Nakhleh’s self-image is subsequently decimated, leading to these feelings of dejection. Adma, for her part, is eminently satisfied by her prosperous commercial ventures and her new status as the family’s breadwinner. At this very moment in Battery Park, she is roused by her husband’s recent insolence in walking out on the children, and fed up with his sulking over the opportunities she has achieved. In berating him, Adma exclaims, “here in America I am everything, the Statue of Liberty continues to raise its hand and it is a woman! I have the right to raise my hand at home, to command and prohibit whether it pleases you or not, so choose what you would like!”1 The transference of symbolic power is a profound moment in this early example of Arabic fiction, as this power is seemingly beaming straight from the Statue of Liberty into this young Syrian woman. More than sixty years later a young Egyptian author named Ra∂w fi◊sh‹ur pens her autobiographical experience as a graduate student in America in the 1970s, in a work entitled al-Ri˛la; Ayym ‡liba Misriyya fı Amrıka (The Journey; The Days of an 1 The quote is from the story Timthl al-˘urriyya (The Statue of Liberty)