Modern Literature of Alexandria

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Perhaps more than any other city, Alexandria has achieved a legendary literary status, and, in the twentieth-century in particular, has had writers of different nationalities immortalize it in literature.

In this course, we will explore the works of some writers whose names are associated with Alexandria, regardless of whether they were Alexandrians themselves or not. The writers we will discuss are C. P. Cavafy, E. M. Forster, Lawrence Durrell, Edwar al Kharrat, Ibrahim Abdel Meguid, Jaqueline Carol and Harry Tzalas.

The aim is to look at writers who bore different relations to the city: Alexandrians of foreign origins (Greek and Lebanese), Egyptian Alexandrians (an Orthodox Christian Copt and a Muslim) and foreigners who were only passing through (British), to explore how he or she represented the city in their works, or how Alexandria influenced their writing.