The Middle Eastern Novel (Critical Survey of Long Fiction, Second Revised Edition)
Origins
The novel did not begin to take root in the Middle East until after World War I and did not develop into a serious genre until after World War II. Although Arabic, Kurdish, Persian, and Turkish literatures have a long and rich assortment of oral narrative forms, it seems that none of them has become a major narrative type in the way that the European novel has. Lacking a native tradition of their own, Middle Eastern novelists thus had to turn to Western models for inspiration and guidance. Prior to the outbreak of World War I, there was some contact between the West and...
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