"That Is No Country for Old Men": Shifting of Literary Borders by "Merit"-Based Egyptian Fiction Writers

In light of the monumental Egyptian Revolution of January 25, 2011, which toppled an ageing, corrupt political regime, this presentation addresses one facet lurking beneath the forces which brought about this upheaval; namely a young generation of Egyptian renegade writers that have similarly come to depose the literary idols of the past, and thus accrue an aesthetics platform of dissent that resonated with the underprivileged and fuming masses. Sponsored by the small, dissident "Merit Publishing House" in Cairo, these largely poor, marginalized fiction writers gradually galvanized a young readership in search of alternative interpretations of their current reality. Coming of age with the arrival of the internet and digital technologies, the literary pronouncements of these writers are more muted and ironic, cynical about the sublime role of art and its social commitment. The presentation investigates how American minimalist writers like Chuck Palahniuk and others have impacted most of these young Merit-based writers. The largely minimalistic language, angrily peppered with Arabic pop culture and the styles of the internet that resonate in the Egyptian fiction of Ahmed Alaidy and his group testify to a "young revolutionary literary generation," inspired by a parallel American movement. This presentation, examines the ruptured Egyptian fiction aesthetics prior to the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 ,and that had its origin in American minimalistic writing, giving birth to a new genre that has shifted the literary borders of a nation's consciousness; and gradually fermenting, alongside other forces, towards the shifting of a whole country's political and social structure.