ARABS SPEAKING FROM THE MARGIN: WHEN ENGLISH LITERATURE HAS GOT ARABIZED

Abstract

Non-native English literatures have recently captured the attention of literary critics and researchers involved in different areas like cultural studies, minorities and post-colonialism. An explosion of books of fiction and non-fiction alike published by writers who are not natives of mainstream Anglo-Saxon countries was followed by a mass of new theorizations, new explorations, new criticism and therefore new literatures that are written in English but by non-English writers. Authors with African, Asian and Arab names (Nigerian-born Ben Okri, Indianborn Arundhati Roy, Japanese-born Kazuo Ishiguro and Egyptian-born
Ahdaf Soueif) are now making a difference in the literary scene by dragging their works from the margin to the center of English literature. Their Englishes may no more be considered as peripheral, to refer to Braj Kachru’s Other Englishes, and their works are now forming a parallel canon that should have similar appreciation as other canonic texts of all times. In this article, a special consideration of non-native English literature is given to Arab Anglophone writings which are polemic more than any other minority narratives, because of the geopolitical conflict that is persisting between the Arab world and the United States and other Western countries . The focus is going to be, then, on the minority aspect of these writings by presenting examples and extracts from different Arab English works.