Summary
Writer of philosophical and political polemic after 1967, read in “Arabic Prose and Prose Fiction After 1948”, the fifth essay in Reflections on Exile and Other Essays, as the activist-author who entered the arena, identified the combatants, and engaged them (Reflections on Exile and Other Essays, PDF p.75-77).
Details
- In his post-1967 works the author entered the arena: the war of 1967 was claimed to have been largely the creation of passivity, backwardness, the mediations of custom, religion, and ossified tradition, so the only progressive role was that of an activist-author forcing the Arab to recognize his role in the struggle (PDF p.76).
- His books are linked directly to the political importance of radical analysis and of radical movements, the Palestinian groups in particular; his is self-criticism based on revolutionary presupposition, not absurdist pastiche (PDF p.77).
- Two works produced shortly after the 1967 war are named in the essay’s notes: Al naqd al thati ba’ad al hazima (Beirut, 1969) and Naqd al fikr al dini (Beirut: Dar al-Taliah, 1969) (PDF p.80, note 15).