Middle Eastern Gothics

‘This is a fascinating volume and a pioneering endeavor in the field of Gothic studies. It decentres the Gothic from its Eurocentric context and anchors it in primordial times of Arab and Islamic literary history and culture. Middle Eastern Gothics penetrates whole new geographies and new languages to critically explore the literature produced at pivotal historical junctures of the modern Middle East.’
Ikram Masmoudi, Associate Professor of Arabic Studies, The University of Delaware

‘This volume offers a brilliant and exciting intervention that embraces transnational regionalism as a challenge to the framework of globality and world literature. The various chapters draw together illuminating readings of key Gothic texts—in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Turkish—with theories of genre and debates in Middle Eastern literatures. The critical attention to language and literary form cuts across the coordinates of north/south/east/west and provides a richly inspiring method of regional hauntology.’
Michael Allan, Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Comparative Literature and Director of Middle East Studies, University of Oregon

‘This valuable collection is the first scholarly volume on Gothic literature from the Middle East and North Africa. In scholarly, fascinating essays, this collection is attentive to the transnationality of the region, and the urgent necessity to recognise the ways that Gothic has always been shaped by global forces and influences. As a panelist wrote, this collection, “Does genuinely valuable work in illuminating the development of modern Gothic beyond the familiar contexts of north America and western Europe.” Another panellist adds that the collection “gently unsettles some of the assumptions other works, and our habitual critical frames, make about the Gothic. This collection will generate new work.”’

(Sara Wasson, Chair of the International Gothic Association’s Book Prize committees)