The dream palace of the Arabs
Subtitle: a generation's odyssey
By: Fouad Ajami.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Pantheon Books
Published: 1998
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 344
Subjects: Intellectuals -- Arab countries; Nationalism -- Arab countries; Arab countries -- Politics and government -- 1945-
Description: Fouad Ajami is a spellbinding chronicler, a teller of haunting tales that open up complex worlds and concepts. Here it is the tale of an "edifice of yearnings" created in the writings of a group of Arab men and women in the wake of World War I. They lived in proximity to the stirring philosophical and political movements of the West and longed for their own world to embrace modernity.

Their dreams were bequeathed to later generations of intellectuals, only to come under siege in a battle over modernity that is still contested in the Arab world.

The Dream Palace of the Arabs, moving back and forth in time, tells the story of the Arabs through their own fiction, prose, and poetry. It vividly renders the distinct textures of Cairo and Beirut, the leading centers of contemporary Arab culture, and depicts through memorable lives the phenomenon of exile and flight that has come to Arab life in our time.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 313-322) and index.
Maps on lining paper.
Includes index.