Arabic Science Fiction

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

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2. Introduction

   • Ian Campbell

   Pages 1-15

3. Postcolonial Literature and Arabic SF

   • Ian Campbell

   Pages 17-45

4. Arabic SF: Definitions and Origins

   • Ian Campbell

   Pages 47-76

5. Criticism and Theory of Arabic SF

   • Ian Campbell

   Pages 77-117

6. Double Estrangement in Nihād Sharīf’s The Conqueror of Time

   • Ian Campbell

   Pages 119-152

7. Continuity Within Rupture in Two Novels by Muṣṭafā Maḥmūd

   • Ian Campbell

   Pages 153-184

8. “Utopia” as a Critique of Utopia in Ṣabrī Mūsā’s The Gentleman from the Spinach Field

   • Ian Campbell

   Pages 185-218

9. Male Gaze as Colonial Gaze in ’Aḥmad ‘Abd al-Salām al-Baqqāli’s The Blue Flood

   • Ian Campbell

   Pages 219-252

10. Mysticism and SF in Ṭālib ‘Umrān’s Beyond the Veil of Time

    • Ian Campbell

    Pages 253-275

11. Inheritance and Intertextuality in a Three-Novel Series by Ṭība ’Aḥmad Ibrāhīm

    • Ian Campbell

    Pages 277-309

12. Conclusion

    • Ian Campbell

    Pages 311-316

13. Back Matter

    Pages 317-322

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This book traces the roots of Arabic science fiction through classical and medieval Arabic literature, undertaking close readings of formative texts of Arabic science fiction via a critical framework developed from the work of Western critics of Western science fiction, Arab critics of Arabic science fiction and postcolonial theorists of literature. Ian Campbell investigates the ways in which Arabic science fiction engages with a theoretical concept he terms “double estrangement” wherein these texts provide social or political criticism through estrangement and simultaneously critique their own societies’ inability or refusal to engage in the sort of modernization that would lead the Arab world back to leadership in science and technology.

• science fiction
• genre fiction
• genre studies
• cognitive estrangement
• allegory science fiction
• Western science fiction
• utopian literature
• distopian literature
• The Blue Flood
• The Conqueror of Time
• Talib Umran
• The Extinction of Man
• Arab literature
• muslim literature
• Islamic literature

“For the scholar, Campbell’s study does an excellent job of exploring how works of ASF from a range of different countries (Kuwait, Egypt, Syria) have approached the literary demands and political risks of writing speculative fiction meant to critique the existing regimes and cultural programs. … scholars who want to understand the specific challenges of the emergence of science fiction in postcolonial settings would do well to explore Campbell’s volume.” (Steven Holmes, SFRA Review, Vol. 50 (1), 2020)

• Georgia State University, Atlanta, USA

  Ian Campbell

Ian Campbell is Associate Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature at Georgia State University, USA. He has published articles in major science fiction journals on Arabic science fiction and also undertakes research in postcolonial Moroccan fiction. He is the author of Labyrinths, Intellectuals and the Revolution: The Arabic-Language Moroccan Novel, 1957–72 (2013).