The Libyan Novel Humans, Animals and the Poetics of Vulnerability

Traces the developments in Libyan novel writing from the 1970s to 2011 through encounters between human, animal and land
Locates the study of internationally renowned authors Ibrahim al-Kuni (b. 1948) and Hisham Matar (b. 1970) within the context of their Libyan compatriots
Analyses works by al-Sadiq al-Nayhum and Ahmad Ibrahim al-Faqih, previously neglected in English-language scholarship
Adds nuance to the understanding of animals as straightforward political allegory, and brings a non-western, Islamic perspective to the study of the ‘creaturely’
Tackles postcolonial themes from the little-studied case of Italy and Libya
Suggests new approaches to postmodernism within a politically and economically isolated country
Analysing prominent novelists such as Ibrahim al-Kuni and Hisham Matar, alongside lesser-known and emerging voices, this book introduces the themes and genres of the Libyan novel during the al-Qadhafi era. Exploring latent political protest and environmental lament in the writing of novelists in exile and in the Jamahiriyya, Charis Olszok focuses on the prominence of encounters between humans, animals and the land, the poetics of vulnerability that emerge from them, and the vision of humans as creatures (makhlūqāt) in which they are framed.