Egyptian Fiction and Arabic Literary Tradition

It is generally acknowledged that the modern Arabic prose genres were borrowed from European literature. A few Arab critics, however, maintain that earlier Arabic literature also contains novels, and that the real origins of modern Arabic fiction are to be found in the élite and popular literary heritage. This paper looks at the relationship between the indigenous literary heritage and Egyptian fiction. The paper is limited to Egypt without any intention to generalise from Egyptian literature to that of the Arab world at large, given that developments in different Arab countries do not follow an exactly parallel course.