Comparative Analysis of \u3ci\u3eAl-Ard\u3c/i\u3e by ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Sharqawi and the Film by Youssef Chahine: Prison Literature and Collective Memory

During the beginning of the twentieth century, works of literature began to center the Egyptian fallah- or peasant- as a political subject, as well as the most authentic representation of national identity. Prior to that, the fallah was negatively depicted, constantly portrayed in a derogatory manner. Al-Ard, a 1954 novel by Egyptian author ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Sharqawi has been described by many literary critics as a nationalist social realist novel that centers the fallah as a political agent. In the 1970s, al-Ard was adapted into a film by Youssef Chahine, an internationally acclaimed Egyptian film director whose works have addressed a wide range of issues in Egypt. This thesis will read the text as: (1) a form of prison literature by al-Sharqawi that critiques the feudalism in the 1930s and 1940s, mass imprisonment of political dissidents in the 1930s and alludes to the possibilities of further repression in the 1950s; and (2) that Chahine’s adaptation of the novel portrays different themes to depict the social-political changes in post-1967 Egypt