Zayni Barakat: A Novel Production of the Panoptic

Author: Elizabeth Nolte

"In his novel Zayni Barakat, Gamal al-Ghitani produces a complex and eloquent masterpiece of narrative structure, characterization, and intertexuality. He utilizes a unitary narrative structure composed of individual narratives punctuated by temporal and authoritative rupturs to realize a polyphonic pardoy and pastiche. Al-Ghitani's experimentation with intertextuality merges past and present Arabic literary traditions and exploits the resulting dissonance to generate an ironic critique of his contemporary Egyptian state."