Introduction: Gender, nation and the canon of the Arabic novel Part I 1. Beginnings: Discourses on Ideal Manhood and Ideal Womanhood 2. The New Man: Conflicting Masculinities in the Fiction of Haikal, al-Mazini and a-Rafi'I 3. Tawfiq al-Hakim and the Civilizational Novel Part II 4. Naguib Mahfouz's Trilogy: A National Allegory 5. Latifa al-Zayyat: Gender and Nationalist Politics 6. Defeated Masculinities in Sonallah Ibrahim Part III 7. The Personal is Political: Debating the New Writing in the 1990s 8.

The Postcolonial Nomadic Novel 9. Liminal Spaces/ Liminal Identities: Hamdi Abu Golayyel, Ahmed Alaidy and Muhammad 'Ala' al-Din Conclusion Arabic References English References Index.