'Our Times': A Personal View (1991)

Document Type : Keynote Address

Author

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

Published in the first volume of the Symposium Proceedings: Images of Egypt in Twentieth Century Literature, ed. Hoda Gindi, Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts, Cairo University (1991), pp. 25-31. This is the English version of the keynote speech delivered in Arabic and published as well in the Proceedings, pp.11-23 (included in the Arabic Section of this Memorial Issue). 

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