Uncovers the politics of nostalgia and madness inherent in the Arabic novelThe Arabic novel has taken shape in the intercultural networks of exchange between East and West past and present Wen chin Ouyang shows how this has created a politics of nostalgia which can be traced to discourses on aesthetics ethics and politics relevant to cultural and literary transformations of the Arabic speaking world in the 19th and 20th centuries She reveals nostalgia and madness as the tropes through which the Arabic novel writes its own story of grappling with and resisting the hegemony of both the state and cultural heritage Explores the work of novelists including Naguib Mahfouz Abd al Khaliq al Rikabi Jamal al Ghitani Ben Salem Himmich Ali Mubarak Adonis Mahmoud Darwish and Nizar QabbaniShows madness to be an expression of the anxiety surrounding the Arabic novel s search for form and Arab intellectuals disappointment in the nation state and modernisationShortlisted for the Sheikh Zayed Book Award 2014