Periferie geografiche e periferie letterarie. L’Arabia Saudita in ‘Abduh Ḫāl e ‘Azīz Muḥammad

Angela Langone

2023-01-01

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Abstract

Starting in the 1960s with an economic growth (the so-called marḥalat al-ṭafra) driven by oil revenues, Saudi Arabia has witnessed a massive phenomenon of urbanization. The aim of this paper is to highlight the contradictions and paradoxes of this urbanization through the analysis of some works by two contemporary Saudi novelists : ʿAbduh Ḫāl (1962-) and ʿAzīz Muḥammad (1987-). However, center/periphery, inside/outside, village/city can be configured as dichotomous structures that can also be applied on a broader level, transcending Saudi national borders to be projected into the world literature system : from the rotation of Saudi literature around itself to the revolutionary motion of a ‘peripheral literature’ around a more prestigious literary center. And what then is the Greenwich Meridian of Saudi literature ?