Le patrimoine culturel arabe dans les nouvelles de Zakariyyā Tāmir: Une esthétique du grotesque

Abstract

Abstract Zakariyyā Tāmir (b. 1931) is generally considered to be one of the most innovative authors in contemporary Arabic literature. One characteristic of his short stories is that they take up and retell the historical and literary traditions of the Middle East in a variety of ways: in his texts Tāmir works − and plays − with subjects, literary models, conventions, lore, and popular folk fictions. It is this work with and on tradition which this study explores by analysing Tāmirs use of historical and literary figures that are part of the cultural heritage. The study argues that the grotesque is the aesthetic category through which Tāmir narrates tradition. This grotesque, distorting, use of the cultural heritage serves a satirical purpose − the stories are a violent critique of the modern Arabic world −, but, moreover, the stories forge by this means a new concept of tradition that subverts any kind of immovable, static and paternalistic concept of tradition.