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Print Culture and Sufi Modernity: Al-Tuhāmī al-Wazzānī’s Embodied Reading of Morocco’s Nahḍa

Print Culture and Sufi Modernity: Al-Tuhāmī al-Wazzānī’s Embodied Reading of Morocco’s Nahḍa AbstractRethinking Arabic literary modernity, this article addresses what the act of reading means as Morocco moves from manuscript to print. In 1941, a leading figure of Morocco’s nahḍa, al-Tuhāmī al-Wazzānī, began to serialize his autobiography al-Zāwiya in one of the country’s earliest newspapers. Heralded as Morocco’s first novel, the moment marks the inauguration of a new reading public. Yet the text does not rely upon the reconfigured relationship with the reader accompanying the rise of print cultures in much of the Middle East and North Africa. Al-Zāwiya is a Sufi autobiography, a genre that invites its readers to assimilate the actions found within its pages. Al-Wazzānī draws upon this long tradition, using intertextual engagement to create a space of discourse that complicates the presumed secularity of Arabic literature during the nahḍa. Early Moroccan print culture thus provides an opportunity to reconsider the continuities of tradition embedded within modern literary practices. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Philological Encounters Brill

Print Culture and Sufi Modernity: Al-Tuhāmī al-Wazzānī’s Embodied Reading of Morocco’s Nahḍa

Head, Gretchen
Philological Encounters , Volume 6 (1-2): 35 – Jul 23, 2021
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References (12)

Publisher
Brill
Copyright
Copyright © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
2451-9189
eISSN
2451-9197
DOI
10.1163/24519197-bja10012
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

AbstractRethinking Arabic literary modernity, this article addresses what the act of reading means as Morocco moves from manuscript to print. In 1941, a leading figure of Morocco’s nahḍa, al-Tuhāmī al-Wazzānī, began to serialize his autobiography al-Zāwiya in one of the country’s earliest newspapers. Heralded as Morocco’s first novel, the moment marks the inauguration of a new reading public. Yet the text does not rely upon the reconfigured relationship with the reader accompanying the rise of print cultures in much of the Middle East and North Africa. Al-Zāwiya is a Sufi autobiography, a genre that invites its readers to assimilate the actions found within its pages. Al-Wazzānī draws upon this long tradition, using intertextual engagement to create a space of discourse that complicates the presumed secularity of Arabic literature during the nahḍa. Early Moroccan print culture thus provides an opportunity to reconsider the continuities of tradition embedded within modern literary practices.

Journal

Philological Encounters – Brill

Published: Jul 23, 2021

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