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Zakariyya Tamir is Syria's foremost writer of short stories, and
his works are widely read across the Arab world. In this, the first
English language monograph on Tamir's entire oeuvre, Alessandro
Columbu examines Tamir's literary development in the context of
changing political contexts, from his beginnings as a short story
writer on local magazines in the late 1950s until the Syrian
revolution of 2011. Thus, the movements from independence and
Western-inspired modernisation to the rise of nationalism and
socialism; war, defeat, occupation in the 1960s; the emergence of
authoritarianism and the cult of personality of Hafiz al-Assad in
the 1970s are charted in the context of Tamir's works. Therein, the
significance of masculinity and patriarchy and its changing nature
in relation to nationalism and authoritarianism are revealed as
Tamir's foremost vehicles for social and political critique. The
role of female sexuality and its disrupting/empowering nature
vis-a-vis patriarchal institutions is also explored, as is the
question of literary commitment and the relationship between
authors and the authoritarian regime of Syria; homosexuality and
representations of unconventional sexualities in general.
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Sour Grapes (Paperback)
Zakaria Tamer; Translated by Alessandro Columbu, Mireia Costa Capallera
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R470
R381
Discovery Miles 3 810
Save R89 (19%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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Set in the Syrian neighborhood of al-Qaweyq, Sour Grapes is a
collection of fifty-nine wry, satirical short stories loosely
connected by a cast of rotating characters living at society’s
margins. Tamer captures their everyday lives, weaving the attendant
cruelties and ironies of living under an oppressive regime with the
residents’ irreverence and small acts of defiance. Inspired by
the heroines of Arab mythology, the women of al-Qaweyq navigate the
patriarchal community with brash confidence and dark humor while
the younger generation of children inherit a bitter cynicism from
their fathers. Evoking under-ripened and immature fruit, the
collection’s title serves as a bittersweet metaphor for a world
that possesses the seeds of change but is unprepared for the
harvest. Considered a master of the short story, Zakaria Tamer is
one of the Arab world’s most prominent and widely read writers.
Columbu and Capallera’s fluid translation gives English readers
access to Tamer’s original and provocative voice
Situated in the fields of contemporary literary and cultural
studies, the ten essays collected in Generations of Dissent shed
light on the artistic creativity, cultural production, intellectual
movements, and acts of political dissidence across the Middle East
and North Africa. Born of the contributors' research on dissidence
and state co-option in a variety of artistic and creative fields,
the volume's core themes reflect the notion that the recent Arab
uprisings did not appear in a cultural, political, or historical
vacuum. Rather than focus on how protestors "finally" broke the
walls of fear created by authoritarian regimes in the region, these
essays show that the uprisings were rooted in multiple generations
and various acts of resistance decades prior to 2010-11. Firat and
Taleghani's volume maps the complicated trajectories of artistic
and creative dissent across time and space, showing how artists
have challenged institutions and governments over the past six
decades.
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