Ahdāf Soueif Makes a Map for Love: A Reality or a Fantasy Through the Meeting of Civilizations and Times? A Dialectic Vision in the Novel The Map of Love by the Egyptian Novelist Ahdāf Soueif

Abstract

It is impossible to talk about literature except through its genres. Besides, it is impossible to deal with any genre without starting with one of its types. When the writer decides to create a literary work, he produces it in the frame of a story, a novel or a poem within a general perception of literature, where all literary genres meet. The Arab novel has developed since the middle of the last century and it has achieved a presence that imposes itself on other genres and types, especially poetry, which kept occupying the central position in creativity. The historical novel, for example, was established in the Arab world by Jurjī Zaydān (1861-1914) at the beginning of the twentieth century, modelled on the Western historical novel and a lot of Arab novelists wrote in its form, stressing in one way or another that they were writing a historical novel. The historical novel is a type of novel in which history blends with imagination, and it intends to describe a certain period or a certain major event in a suitable narrative style that is based on history data, but without being tied or committed to it but often without adherence or commitment to them in most cases.   When Ahdāf Sueif wrote The Map of Love, she introduced it in a dazzling way because it is based on the reader's manner of reading history and the concept of history through an amazing love story that is full of beauty that makes the reader unite with the text. Citation: Hanan Bishara (2022) Ahdāf Soueif Makes a Map for Love: A Reality or a Fantasy Through the Meeting of Civilizations and Times?  A Dialectic Vision in the Novel The Map of Love by the Egyptian Novelist Ahdāf Soueif, European Journal of English Language and Literature Studies, Vol.10, No.4, pp.13-36