Abstract
ABSTRACTAlthough the Egyptian singer Umm Kulthūm had reached unmatched fame early in her career, her ties with the regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser added further political significations to her iconography. The synergy between the two towering figures of Egyptian music and politics captivated many, yet it provoked a wave of criticism that pointed to the dangerous entanglement of art and political power. In examining the intertwinement of art, power, and subversion, this article explores the depiction of Umm Kulthūm in the novels of Albert Cossery and Waguih Ghali and the poetry of Ahmed Fouad Negm. It shows how the three Egyptian dissident writers desecrated and subverted the iconography of Umm Kulthūm, thereby voicing a displaced critique of Nasser and Nasserism. Literary dissent emerges in these authors’ peripheral narratives as a counter-discourse that deconstructs processes of canonization and exposes ideological dissonance in the aftermath of the 1952 revolution.
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