Modern Arabic Literature. “The Breaker” Edwar Al-Kharrat

Abstract

The article is devoted to the developing of modernism in Arabic prose and the art of one of the most prominent figures of this trend - Edwar al-Kharrat (1926-2015). The end of the dominance of the classical novel exactly in the first half of the 20th century and the turn of the generation of the 60s to new artistic techniques is directly associated with the historical events of 1967 (Six-Day War). It is noted that one of the consequences of these events for literature was the change of discourse - from revival (an-Nahda) to defeat (an-Naksa). The artistic method of Edwar al-Kharrat is characterized in detail on the examples of his early story “Station” and the novel “Rama and the Dragon”, which was included in the top ten Arabic-language novels of all time by the Union of Arab Writers. The authors distinguish thematic blocks in the works of al-Kharrat: the eternal themes of love, life and suffering, which are passed through Hellenistic and Middle Eastern mythologies and Christian philosophy. Such techniques of al-Kharrat as playing with the chronotope, narration through the subjective perception, attention to sensations, replacing the plot with a description, using dichotomy - the opposition of male and female, Christianity and Islam etc. are highlighted. Also the authors stress the significance of al-Kharrat's theoretical works on literature, where the artistic method, defined by him as a “new sensibility” and opposed by critics to what was called “al-Mahfuzia”, is comprehended. The question is raised about the role of al-Kharrat in the history of the latest literature of the Arab countries, while the authors try to remove the contradiction that is seen in the inimitability of al-Kharrat and his simultaneous fundamental influence on subsequent generations of prose writers.