The Internationalization of Modern Arabic Literature: From Naguib Mahfouz’s Nobel Prize to The Yacoubian Building

Abstract

With regard to the Arab world, it is surprising to see that in fact literature written in French, which was thought to be linked with the colonial moment and destined to disappear post-independence with the Arabization policies adopted at that period, has seen a new flourishing starting in the 1980s. I am not referring just to the production of Arab émigré writers in France, such as Tahar Ben Jelloun and Driss Chraïbi, but also to literary works in French by authors living in their own countries who publish in French, whether for a small elite of readers or for the majority of readers in their home countries.