Haunting Energies in the Arabic Novel

Demons, jinn, doubles and phantoms populate the Arabic novel, particularly as it turns to transforming, turbulent ecological spaces. From the 1960s, 70s and 80s, literary visions of unbearable heat and fragile, collapsing lands prefigure our current crisis. This book revisits key foundational works of modern Arabic fiction, arguing for the ecological uncanniness of their literary experimentation. Emphasising the shaping force of dams, road building, oil extraction and climate change, Haunting Energies forges new comparative paradigms for the Arabic novel, connected by way of rivers, pipelines and hydrological schemes.