Randomness and Political Complexity in the Contemporary Arab Novel

Abstract

This essay examines the concept of randomness in three novels by contemporary Arab novelists, employing chaos theory and complexity theory. The three novels are Lebanese Rabie Gaber's dystopian novel Beirutus: Underground City ( Beirutus: Madīna Taḥt al-Arḍ, 2005), Egyptian Ezzedine Choukri Fishere's realistic novel Exit ( Bāb al-Khurūj, 2012), and Algerian Yasmina Khadra's detective novel What are Monkeys Waiting for? ( Qu'attendent les singes, 2014). Although they belong to different genres, all three are speculative novels and present different forms of political-security complexity and chaos in the contemporary Arab world. They represent unpredictable, random events that both resonate with and anticipate forthcoming events and political changes in the Arab world. Exit, for instance, represents the unexpected downfall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the return of the military rule after the 2011 revolution, and Beirutus the unexpected rubbish and environmental crisis in 2016 in Lebanon, while What are Monkeys Waiting for? anticipates the contemporary political turmoil in Algeria. Randomness and unpredictability in the three novels are used as a means of political projection and prediction, and as narrative strategies of literary activism against repressive realities and authoritarianism. By representing the unpredictable, Gaber, Fishere and Khadra implicitly incite resistance by warning of appalling forthcoming realities.