'Our Times': A Personal View (1991) | ||
| Cairo Studies in English | ||
| Volume 2025, Issue 1, July 2025, Pages 50-57 PDF (287.77 K) | ||
| Document Type: Keynote Address | ||
| DOI: 10.21608/cse.2025.442160 | ||
| Author | ||
| Latifa Al-Zayat | ||
| Faculty of Women, Ain Shams University | ||
| Abstract | ||
| The keynote address delivered by Latifa al-Zayat at the First International Symposium on Comparative Literature: Images of Egypt in Twentieth Century Literature (1989) was published in the first volume of the Symposium Proceedings series, ed. Hoda Gindi (1991). Latifa Al-Zayat (1923-1996) provides ‘a personal view’ on ‘our times’ – which span most of the 20th century. In the opening words of her speech, she describes – what is now termed as – her ‘positionality’ by situating herself as a ‘witness’ sharing her ‘personal memories and experience’. The opening paragraphs set the tone of the whole address, establishing the intersections of national history and literary history, presented from a Marxist perspective conscious of the social and class struggles. In her foreword to the article, Hala Kamal points out that Latifa Al-Zayat’s survey of Egyptian literature an academic, critic, and writer provides a personal perspective of a significant decolonial Marxist reading of Egyptian literary history in the 20th century. At the same time, it offers a method and model for a critical inquiry that looks at literary texts as ‘images’ and representations of their times and societies. Perhaps most importantly it shows how a personal reflection can offer a political perspective; the way in which individual experiences develop into intellectual engagement; and how literary expression can provide a view and a vision. Foreword by Hala Kamal | ||
| Keywords | ||
| Latifa Al-Zayat; images; Egypt; literature, 20th century, Cairo University | ||
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