Literary Modernity Between the Middle East and Europe

Providing a broad ranging and unique comparative study of the development of English, Persian and Arabic literature, this book looks at their interrelations with specific reference to modernity, nationalism and social value. It gives a strong theoretical underpinning to the development of Middle Eastern literature in the modern period.

Kamran Rastegar is lecturer in Arabic and Persian at the University of Edinburgh.  He researches cultural history, postcolonial studies, and the cinemas of Iran and the Arab world.

Introduction 1. The Literary Abacus: Transactions in Nineteenth-Century Arabic, English and Persian Literatures Part 1: Nineteenth-Century Arabian Nights' Biographies 2. Biographies of the Arabian Nights, An English Chapter 3. Modern Arabic and Persian Biographies of the Arabian Nights Part 2: Writing Travels and Other Transactions 4. The Inner Subjects of Arabic and Persian Travel Texts on Europe 5. On Nothing and Everything: Travel, Conversion, and the Transformation of (Ahmad) Faris al-Shidyaq, Arab Observer of Europe 6. Transactions and Translations: Hajji Baba Ispahani's Value Between English and Persian Readerships. Epilogue: Towards Critical Philology