Egypt Awakening In The Early Twentieth Century

Through a detailed study of Mayy Ziyadah's literary salon, Boutheina Khaldi sheds light on salon and epistolary culture in early twentieth-century Egypt and its role in Egypt's Nahdah (Awakening). Bringing together history, women's studies, Arabic literature, post-colonial literature, and media studies, she highlights the important and previously little-discussed contribution of Arabic women to the project of modernity.

Review: In writing this book about Mayy Ziyadah and her early twentieth-century Cairo salon, which for the first time brought together the male and female literati of the Arab world, Boutheina Khaldi has contributed a crucial missing element in the construction of the modern Arabic literary canon. - Miriam Cooke, professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Duke University