Telling the real: Literary reportage in contemporary Arabic literature

Authors

  • Monica Ruocco University of Naples "L'Orientale"

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13135/1825-263X/12452

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to delineate the recent evolution and innovations of literary reportage in contemporary Arabic literature, a genre of considerable significance for a number of reasons, primarily due to its capacity to engender a novel form of engagement. The paper seeks to furnish an overview of select reportages composed within the last two decades by writers who have employed this genre to investigate the connections between the creative word and committed journalism, between fiction and truth. The paper will then focus on the role of literary reportage in war situations, where it functions as a counter-narrative, emphasising the inescapable role of the written word in situations of violence and dehumanisation. 

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Monica Ruocco, University of Naples "L'Orientale"

Monica Ruocco is professor of Arabic language and literature at University of Naples “L’Orientale.” Her research focuses on the fictional and theatrical production of the Middle East and the Maghreb. For her activity as a translator, she received the National Translation Award of the Italian Ministry of Culture in 2015. She is the author of many books, including Storia del teatro arabo dalla nahda a oggi (‘History of Arab Theatre from Nahda to Today,’ Roma:  2010) and La Sarah Bernhardt d’Oriente e prima attrice del teatro arabo (‘Memoirs: The Sarah Bernhardt of the East and the First Actress of the Arab Theatre,’ Roma: 2021), as well as editor of Esistenze: Voci delle drammaturgie arabe tra diaspora e rivoluzione (‘Existences: Voices of Arab Drama between Diaspora and Revolution,’ Napoli: 2021), and co-editor of Fiction and History: the Rebirth of the Historical Novel in Arabic (Roma: 2022).

Monica can be contacted at: monica.ruocco@unior.it

Downloads

Published

2025-09-29

Issue

Vol. 29 No. 3 (2025): Arabic literature: Writing in the face of crisis since the 1960s

Section

Literary experimentalism, critical thinking, and geography of the imaginary

License

Gli autori che pubblicano su Kervan accettano le seguenti condizioni:

  1. Gli autori mantengono i diritti sulla loro opera e cedono alla rivista il diritto di prima pubblicazione dell'opera, contemporaneamente licenziata sotto una Licenza Creative Commons - Attribuzione che permette ad altri di condividere l'opera indicando la paternità intellettuale e la prima pubblicazione su questa rivista.
  2. Gli autori possono aderire ad altri accordi di licenza non esclusiva per la distribuzione della versione dell'opera pubblicata (es. depositarla in un archivio istituzionale o pubblicarla in una monografia), a patto di indicare che la prima pubblicazione è avvenuta su questa rivista.