Prison Literature in the Arab World *Online*

Arabic prison writing is a growing corpus of literature consisting of poems, novels, short stories, plays, and autobiographies. When we speak of prison literature in the Arab world, we are talking about political prisoners and forcibly disappeared individuals under tyrannies.
The course is intended to serve as an introduction to the growing genre of prison literature in the Arab world and how it mirrors the realities of Arab societies. We aim to examine three translated memoirs mainly and read through interviews, plays, and poetry when necessary. Our discussions will be supported by scholarship on prisons, prison literature, torture, and torturers in the Arab world. We will look at how the relationship with God, family, and the other is changing under torture, and in exile behind bars. We will explore how imprisonment and daily torture is influencing conceptions of forgiveness, hope, justice, governance, and religious practice. Through the autobiographies and the accounts on other prisoners' social and political lives we will examine the social systems and the individual and collective selves emerging inside the prison.
Instructor: Sendus Majanni