رمان چندآوايي در ادبيات معاصر عرب

Polyphonic Novel in Contemporary Arabic Fiction

Polyphonic novel is the linking ring between classic and realistic novels and the modern psychological ones which leave the outside world aside and opt for the exploration of the world inside the man. In its evolution process, the polyphonic novel has passed two stages and has emerged in two forms; first, the novels which have two or more narrators, and second, those which are formed from different literary genres like fiction, essay, poetry, etc. and are linked together by a single subject. In modern Arabic fiction, this form of fiction writing is no different from its other forms and we should trace its roots in European and American fiction. In Europe, this branch of fiction writing was introduced by Fyodor Dostoevskyʹs "The Possessed" and was later followed by E. L. Doctorowʹs novel, "Ragtime". Milan Kundera with his famous works like "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" brought this branch of fiction to climax. In the contemporary Arabic fiction, several polyphonic novels have appeared and in the present article we examine three of the most important ones, i.e. "Miramar" by Najib Mahfouz, "Sharq al-Motevaset" by ʹAbd al- Rahman Monif and "Lailat al-Meliar" by Ghadeh al-Samman.