Abstract
The second generation of postwar writers, when they entered the field in the late 1990s and 2000s, found it in a state radically different from what it had been in the late 1970s. The pastoral idylls, a literature idealizing Lebanon as a cultural crossroads and haven of peaceful coexistence, though it may still have featured in their school books (Salem, 2003, pp. 55–56), had been relegated to the past by a group of writers who claimed to have reinvented Lebanese literature. Novels of the war generation were widely held to rank among the most innovative and experimental works of Arabic literature, and they painted a different picture of Lebanon: a crossroads it remained, but for the armies of neighboring countries, the local militias, and criminals of all descriptions who sought to profit from the breakdown of state authority. Blood, violence, and destruction, and the visible and invisible wounds the war had inflicted on the population, had become the focus of literary production: “condemning the war,” as Abbas Beydoun put it, was to many writers the main purpose of Lebanese literature.
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Copyright information
© 2016 Felix Lang
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lang, F. (2016). The Civil War Novel as Gateway to the Literary Field. In: The Lebanese Post-Civil War Novel. Palgrave Studies in Cultural Heritage and Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137555175_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137555175_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-57622-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-55517-5
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)