자말 알기따니 소설의 역사와 당대 현실 -『알자이니 바라카트』를 중심으로

Abstract

The study deals with the issue of history and modern reality in Jamal al-Ghitani's novel, focusing on his novel al-Zayni Barakat in particular. Like the Arab writers who regarded themselves as the Sixties Generation of Arabic literature, Jamal al-Ghitani went through rapidly changing reality which surrounded Egyptian society in the 1960s. He sometimes confronted, in the course of writing, the harsh political oppression and compromised the other times with the ruling bureaucrats. Jamal al-Ghitani won a distinctive reputation by deep inquiry into the historical records and documents of medieval Egypt. The study shed light on the social background, objectives, methods, techniques and the artistic accomplishments that the writer could establish through the use of historical contents in al-Zayni Barakat. The study analyses the similarities and differences that lie between the characters, events and social conditions of the medieval reality and the social reality of Egypt in 1960s. The study concludes that al-Zayni Barakat is primarily a political novel, though it covers itself with a mask of historical representation.