Native tongue, stranger talk : the Arabic and French literary landscapes of Lebanon / Michelle Hartman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hartman, Michelle, author.

Series:

Middle East studies beyond dominant paradigms.

Middle East Studies Beyond Dominant Paradigms

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Arabic literature--Lebanon--History and criticism.

Arabic literature.

Lebanese literature (French)--History and criticism.

Lebanese literature (French).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (382 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Syracuse, New York : Syracuse University Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Can a reality lived in Arabic be expressed in French? Can a French-language literary work speak Arabic? In Native Tongue, Stranger Talk Hartman shows how Lebanese women authors use spoken Arabic to disrupt literary French, with sometimes surprising results. Challenging the common claim that these writers express a Francophile or "colonized" consciousness, this book demonstrates how Lebanese women writers actively question the political and cultural meaning of writing in French in Lebanon. Hartman argues that their innovative language inscribes messages about society into their novels by disrupting class-status hierarchies, narrow ethno-religious identities, and rigid gender roles. Because the languages of these texts reflect the crucial issues of their times, Native Tongue, Stranger Talk guides the reader through three key periods of Lebanese history: the French Mandate and Early Independence, the Civil War, and the postwar period. Three novels are discussed in each time period, exposing the contours of how the authors "write Arabic in French" to invent new literary languages.

Contents:

""Contents""; ""Preface""; ""Acknowledgments""; ""Introduction""; ""1 Gendered Interference""; ""2 Jamil and Salma""; ""3 May You Bury Me""; ""4 Language and Liberation in a Woman's Novel of the 1950's""; ""5 Arabic as Feminist Punctuation in the Novel of the Lebanese Civil War""; ""6 Like Soap Bubbles on Our Tongue""; ""7 Lebanon Is Tomorrow's Sun""; ""8 Can a French Novel Speak Arabic?""; ""9 Writing as Translation""; ""10 A Francophone Druze Novel?""; ""11 The Tightening Corset of French""; ""12 The Arabic Language Leaked into It""; ""Conclusion""; ""Bibliography""; ""Index""

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780815652694

0815652690

OCLC:

881481592