This article attempts to examine the Egyptian novel of the first decade of the twenty-first century in terms of displaying those public moods that can be interpreted as "premonitions" or harbingers of the "January 25 revolution" of 2011. At the same time, it should be noted that, although the very fact of displaying in fiction the dominant moods in society, what is called the "zeitgeist", is not in doubt, literature does not predict specific events. These or other "predictions" are usually read by critics and readers in a work of fiction after the fact, after the events have already taken place. This was the case, for example, with Naguib Mahfouz's novel "Pension Miramar", completed by the author in 1967, and published in 1968. When the novel was published, many Egyptian critics called it" prophetic", referring to the disastrous results of the" six-day "Arab-Israeli war of 1967, although the image of a" divided " society created in the novel only testified that the author did not see in Egypt a socio-political force capable of uniting this society and show him the right path to the future.

:Keywords modern Egyptian novel, Egyptian "revolution of January 25" 2011, Muhammad Nagi, Naguib Mahfouz, Said Nuh, Miral al-Tahawi, Yusuf Zaydan, Muhammad Salamawi.

Review by Sh. Weidner's response to Khalid al-Khamisi's book "Conversations in a Taxi" (Al-Khamisi, 2006; see Kirpichenko, 2008) is titled "Please Come to at-Tahrir Square". Collected in the book and artistically processed monologues of Cairo taxi drivers really pointed to the existence of widespread public discontent with the state of affairs in Egypt. At the same time, the review appeared only a few months after the events in at-Tahrir Square began, but it only says about the book itself that it " captures with documentary accuracy the existing moods in society, and the problems reflected in it are so great that they could not be embodied in a purely artistic form, and the book combines It combines the qualities of a literary work, political article, and social research" [Weidner, 2011, p. 77].

Thus, when we talk about the appearance of certain "premonitions" or "premonitions" in literature, we mean first of all the ability of the author-artist to capture and reflect the prevailing moods in society, the atmosphere of the historical moment being experienced. At the same time, it is necessary to take into account the individuality of the creative manner of each author and the personal, subjective nature of his perception of what is happening around him.

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In today's Egyptian prose, in particular in novelistics, it is difficult to distinguish any clearly defined trends or trends - there is too great a variety of writer's personalities and styles, as well as the authors ' attitudes to new ones

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trends and phenomena in the world literature. For many writers, the subject of special concern is the preservation and affirmation of the national face of literature, and they consider further development and creative use of medieval Arabic cultural heritage to be the best way to counter the latest trends in the world's "literary fashion". Therefore, postmodernism in its Egyptian interpretation, which became widespread, especially among the younger generation of novelists, in the 1990s, and neotraditionalism, which has existed in Egyptian fiction since the 1960s, represent two peculiar poles of the literary movement, connected by numerous threads of mutual attraction and repulsion. At the same time, the literature also retains a strong realistic tradition, connected, however, no longer with the search for a "big social idea", but with the defense of a humanistic view of man.

With the publication of Naguib Mahfouz's last book, actually a literary testament (1911-2006), "Dreams of the Healing Period" (Ahlam Fatrat al-Naqaha, 2005), the literary community is constantly debating the true value of the creative heritage of the Egyptian Nobel Prize winner. These debates are very revealing and serve as a kind of barometer of the mood of writers of different generations. There are some young authors who are ready to write off not only Mahfouz, but also all the literature of the last century. And according to the writer Ala ad-Dib (b. 1939), who represents the generation of the "sixties", the development of the Egyptian novel stopped at Mahfouz, since subsequent experiments with new forms did not lead to the birth of a new thought.

"Society is unhealthy," writes Ala ad - Dib, " socially, economically, and educationally unhealthy. All this leads to a disorder of thought. There can be no healthy thought in such a society. There is not a single critical or ideological project that deserves serious consideration... In my opinion, the "new letter" did not add anything worthwhile. There are individual successes. But there are no genuine breakthroughs. It started in the 1960s and continues to this day" [Ala ad-Dib, 2011, p.22].

There is some truth in this assessment, but it is difficult to agree with it entirely.

The term "new writing" (al-kitaba al-jadida) refers to the generation of novelists of the 1990s.Among them were many talented authors who were well-versed in the most modern Western literature, committed to postmodern aesthetics and professed a pessimistic view of the world and their own future.

Muhammad Nagi's novel The Morning Song (b.1947) [Nagi, 1994], which describes a fateful day in the lives of two characters, was a great success. Both of them are street vendors, who every morning lay out their simple goods on the asphalt, near the small shop of Haji Vika, over which the proud sign "Supermarket "New Century"flaunts. Both are disabled: Abbas, a stumpy former baker who lost his legs and one arm in one of the wars and rides a wheeled cart that he calls "pig"; Nawfal, a former calligrapher, has shaky hands, can't hold a brush, and looks longingly at the last sign of his work left on the street. They are people of different personalities and temperaments: energetic, active and assertive, despite his disability, Abbas, who even harbors plans for marriage, and Naufal, timid, hopelessly waiting for the return of his son who disappeared in the war in Kuwait and dreaming of an amber rosary that supposedly cures "shivers". Abbas for some reason, for some obscure reason, hates Naufal, considers his meekness a mask that hides the "fangs of the beast". Every day, Abbas begins by leaping nimbly onto Naufal's chest, shaking his shoulders with the fists of his hands, pressing down on his stomach, and laughing mockingly to the cheerful sounds of the "Morning Song" coming from the radio in Haji Vika's shop. Nawfal is afraid of Abbas and also hates him to such an extent that he is ready to die under him, if only his enemy would be brought to justice and

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jailed as a murderer. And the murder is finally committed - brutal, senseless... A person who has become essentially a beast kills another who is completely desperate for life.

The novel is imbued with the spirit of hopelessness, the story of two people thrown on the sidelines of society, symbolizes the collapse of all previous humanistic ideas about man.

Muhammad Nagi's satirical novel "Arab Maqams" (Nagi, 1999), an allegorical history of the Egyptian rulers from ancient times to the present day, also gives no hope for the future. The novel only vaguely resembles the genre of makama 1. But it evokes involuntary associations with the" History of the city of Glupov " by Saltykov-Shchedrin, with the images of the city mayors of Glupov. The narrative ends with the statement: "And the time spring broke, and the gears spun in vain, and their rotation was chaotic and chaotic, bringing us back to the stories of our distant ancestors: we philosophized with Maad, laughed with Vaad, and mourned what had happened to Daad. And every time the needle was ready to move, the shadow of Taurus passed it, and it froze in place-it would shake and stop, shake and stop, until it completely crushed us... This watch remains one of our wonders, and under it is written: "This is a time clock, it indicates the life lines of ancestors and descendants. As it was, so it will be" " [Nagi, 1999, p. 225].

M. Nagi continued to experiment with postmodern aesthetics in the novel "Al-Aika daughter of al-Zayn" (Nagi, 2001), developing in it the theme of mutual hatred of man for man. However, in 2008 he published the novel "Al-Efendi "(Nagi, 2008), written in a realistic manner, creates in it a fairly large - scale picture of" market society " and deduces the character of a person - flesh from the flesh of this society-who thinks and lives according to its laws. Effendi retained only childhood memories, which did not evoke any emotions in him as an adult, of the time of hopes that his father had associated with the nationalization of the Suez Canal, with the construction of a High-rise dam, with the voices of famous singers and singers, even with the voice of Gamal Abd al - Nasser-all these voices "came from the heart". My father doesn't like Sadat's voice: "It's like he's advertising a product... words come not from the heart, but from the mind, and you can feel calculations behind them - some are known to you, others are not, and this is alarming "[Nagi, 2008, p. 30].

The parents named their son Habibullah (beloved of Allah). The second name, al-Effendi (lord), he appropriated to himself. And his beloved Nazik, a half-gypsy woman who sells flowers in the market and predicts the future, calls him " my betrothed."

He is attracted to her by an irresistible passion, attracted by the deep and tart aroma of a woman emanating from her, "the smell of bread dough and fresh cloves." She runs away from him, as if anticipating how much grief he will bring her, but she can't run away. He is shy about her, thinks that "she is not suitable for him", but Nazik is the only woman he always wants.

Unlike her father, who does not like new times, Effendi is well-versed in the new situation and sees the opportunities it opens up - not only to earn money, but also to get rich. He uses these opportunities to the maximum - speculates in dollars, sells fake jewelry, deceives tourists who do not know local prices. Nasik's feelings and life are essentially of no interest to him, despite his unquenchable desire to possess this woman. Effendi is not capable of feeling, he has no other goal than to get rich. For this purpose, they acquire useful acquaintances, learn foreign languages, and closely monitor market conditions.

Makami 1 genre of Arabic literature, picaresque stories in rhymed prose with poetic inserts, telling about the adventures of a talented and educated fraudster.

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Once Nazik disappears for a whole year, and in response to Efendi's questions, he gets out of it and tells "stupid" stories. Only years later it turns out that she has a daughter and she needs money to buy the girl a birth certificate. But Habibullah Efendi rudely refuses her - let her daughter Nazik is engaged in her unknown father. In addition, Efendi has invested all his capital in land plots, and he does not have any spare money. On the resale of land, he made his first million.

Nazik's money is given to Haji Hussein, a wealthy jeweller who is a distant relative of Effendi. In the novel, he is the opposite of Effendi, a man who lives "according to his conscience", observes the Islamic precepts of non-greed and helping others, and values his reputation as an honest merchant. Efendi, who doesn't trust anyone, constantly suspects that by helping Nasik, Hussein pursues some self-serving interest, finds no evidence of this, but is unable to believe in human kindness and that there can be other values for people other than money. In fact, in the images of Hussein and Effendi, the author deduces the same two human types that already appeared in his previous novel - a person who has a spiritual life, and a person who is absolutely spiritless. However, in this case, the author also shows the social ground that gave rise to them - Hussein was brought up in the traditions of patriarchal Muslim morality, while Effendi is a product of the "new time".

The novel is written in the first person, Effendi tells about himself with the frankness of a person who is absolutely sure not only of his right to live exclusively "for himself", observing only his own "interest" and his own health, but also that all people are like that. But in the finale, he realizes that he is a "poor person", poor, despite all that he has acquired and appropriated. He is "poor mentally", he has nothing to remember, his soul is empty. In the finale, Effendi has a belated "epiphany", which gives the novel a touch of melodramatic and enlightening sententiousness.

In the same year, 2008, Said Nuh's novel "Angel of Last Hope" (Malak al-fursa al-ahira) was published. M. Nagi, who highly appreciated the novel of a colleague, called Said Nuh "the most important of the Arab writers" [Nagi, 2008(2)]. In this, the sixth in my novel (the first - "Every time I see a beautiful girl, I exclaim" O Suad!2 "" - released in 1995) S. Nuh with pain and passion tells about the fate of Palestine and the Palestinian people.

At the same time, the author uses postmodern techniques of travesty, "reshaping" and reducing the plots and motives he has drawn from various sources. The novel is stylized as a medieval "framed story". His "frame" is the story of the "Angel of Last Hope". This Angel is always smiling, he brings joy to people, comes to the rescue at the last minute and hands the person in trouble a "purple bag with a reward". But this time the Angel made a mistake, he saw the "dream girl" and forgot about his duties, that the "unhappy father of the family" was waiting for him. The angel "spread his wings, embraced the girl, drew her to him and kissed her on the cheek." He forgot about his duties, and this marked the beginning of the tragedy. An angel repents all his life.

Within the framework of the Angel's story, the narrator presents many, often contradictory, travestied versions of the Palestinian tragedy, belonging to different narrators. At the same time, he uses the constant folklore beginning "they tell what...", refers to legends, fairy tales, folk legends, historical works, and even "rumors". Which of the versions is true is left to the reader to decide, and the text occasionally contains voices of protest claiming that " the narrator doesn't know what he's talking about." According to one version, the Lord had conversations with the archangel Seraphim, Adam and Iblis and allowed the latter, at his request, to arrange tricks for the Angel of last hope - to make him make a mistake one day. And the Angel forgot about Palestine, didn't come to her rescue at the last minute.

2 Suad - the name of the beloved in the famous qasida "Al-Burda" ("Cloak") Kaaba of ibn Zuhayr (VII century).

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The narrator himself tries to talk to God, but the latter dismisses him as if he were an annoying fly.

The novel concentrates, one might even say mixed, a lot of different narrative forms-from the oldest to the most modern. The plots of sacred texts are recoded in the spirit of postmodern aesthetics. Harsh irony, satire acts as a meaning-forming principle, but through it comes a call to compassion for the victim of injustice coming from the depths of the narrator's soul.

A multi-voiced fairy tale is written in a special schedule: there are no paragraphs, the lines are aligned along the edge and divided into short segments. The line ends with the end of the phrase or in the middle of it. The next phrase starts with a new line. The text resembles kasida in prose with elements of rhyme. The Bayts of Qasida are independent, and transitions from one topic to another are unexpected (from God to the current president). The ragged rhythm conveys the extreme degree of excitement of the narrator, his despair and indignation at the indifference of people to the suffering of an entire nation.

The novel ends with an impassioned appeal to all Arabs to come to the aid of "abandoned and forgotten" Palestine.

The novel attracted numerous responses, primarily on the Internet. The Palestinian issue is one of the most painful for Egyptians, it is associated in their minds with national humiliation, and readers expressed their support for the author who "dared" to declare it so loudly.

Miral al-Tahawi (b. 1968), who became a "discovery" of the 1990s, also belongs to the generation of authors of the "new letter". Her first novel is "The Tent" ("Al-Hiba") It was recognized as one of the two best novels of 1996. Written in the form of a "story about yourself" (but not autobiographical in the literal sense of the word), it is one of the most tragic Egyptian novels. And it completely reinterprets the image of the father, which is extremely important for Egyptian literature of the XX century. In N. Mahfouz's epic family saga, the trilogy "Bein al-Qasrain" (1956-1957), the father of the family personified all the power of the patriarchal world, and in" Sons of our Street " (1959) even symbolized the Creator (in In the Dreams of the healing Period, the father is never mentioned). In M. at-Tahawi's novel "Tent" 3, the heroine's father, a wealthy Bedouin from Upper Egypt, calls his young daughter the "Princess of Adnan" and promises her a future worthy of a princess. But he does not keep his promise, and the daughter who loved him, having grown up and lost her leg, hates the aged, hunched and pathetic father. And the father, if he meets his daughter crawling on the ground in the courtyard of the house, looks away. In the novel's "bodily" metaphors, the tragedy of a talented, creative person who holds the whole world in his soul, aspires to free, free flight and turns into a "lame duck crucified on a tent peg"is read. The impression produced by the novel was compared by critics to a "burn".

M. at-Tahawi's next two novels, The Blue Eggplant (Al-Bazinjana al-Zarqa, 1999) and The Trampling of Gazelle Hooves (Nakarat al-ziba, 2001), varied on the same theme of the sad fate of women in a patriarchal society, but they did not repeat the success of the first novel. Soon the writer left for the United States, where she began teaching Arabic at the University of North Carolina.

While in the United States, M. at-Tahawi wrote the novel "Brooklyn Heights", which was published in Cairo and again attracted the attention of readers and critics to her work. The novel was nominated for the Arabic Booker 4 and received the 2011 Naguib Mahfouz Award from the American University in Cairo.

3 For the romance "Tent", see: [Kirpichsnko and Safronov, 2003].

4 The Arabic Buksr is an international prize in the field of Arabic literature, awarded since 2009. The award is founded by the same foundation that awards the British Booksr, and is designed to draw attention to the literature of the Arab world beyond its borders.

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The English title "Brooklyn High" is printed on the cover of the book in Arabic transcription, without translation. This is the name of an elevated part of Brooklyn, where, according to guidebooks, "one of the most romantic places" in New York is located-the embankment, which overlooks the Statue of Liberty, the Manhattan coastline and the Brooklyn Bridge.

Like all previous novels by M. at-Tahawi, "Brooklyn Heights" is a story about a dramatic female fate, but the scale of the work is already different, since it describes the fate of many people, immigrants from different countries, living side by side in Brooklyn. This novel again cannot be called autobiographical, despite the fact that it uses autobiographical material more fully than before, and the narrative is based on M. at-Tahawi's own impressions of life in America. Autobiographical is the rebellious and freedom-loving character of the heroine - the Egyptian Hind, a woman in her forties who constantly reflects on her age and appearance, the mother of a schoolboy son who left Egypt after a divorce from her cheating husband. Hind has rented a one-room apartment over the Internet and walks around Brooklyn every day, sometimes looking for work, sometimes visiting administrative offices, shops, cafes, and the public library (she writes poems and short stories and dreams of accidentally meeting someone who would help her publish them). Meets the inhabitants of Brooklyn, among them only one American-Hind's housemate Charlie, he earns money by giving tango lessons in the dance hall in the evenings. The rest are Arabs from different countries, an Iraqi Kurd married to a Mexican woman, a Chinese restaurant owner who serves "strange dishes", a beautiful Somali Fatima who dreams of becoming the second Naomi Campbell, a young Afghan who boasts that he worked with the US military in Afghanistan, which causes a hostile feeling in Hind, a talkative Jewish Emilia She emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1972 with her husband, a retired physics professor (Emilia earns part-time jobs selling old, "vintage" shoes at the Sunday market). Hind listens to stories about their lives, true or fictional, sees off and meets his son from school, wondering how quickly the boy learns the English vocabulary he needs - he already buys his own gum, sandwiches and sweets, easily pronouncing their names. Hind just walks around holding her son's hand, because it's a day off; their room is gloomy; she doesn't sleep at night; she doesn't let go of her anxiety. A woman is bound by an inner lack of freedom, seems old, fat, ugly, suffers from loneliness. It is not easy for her to communicate with people - she knows English, but does not like to speak it. The Arabs who live in Brooklyn-Moroccans, Algerians, Sudanese, Yemenis-do not speak literary Arabic and speak their own dialect and poor English. Hind thinks that since they don't have a common language, they don't know each other at all. She, a teacher of Arabic by profession (like the author of the novel), is attached to her own language and cannot love any other.

Chapters of the novel are named after Brooklyn streets, neighborhoods, bars, markets, cemeteries, parks, and other places where the heroine walks. These names are given in English and are duplicated in the Arabic transcription. English vocabulary is present in descriptions of urban landscapes, in conversations with Brooklyn acquaintances, with his son, it is connected with the present in which Hind lives. But the present is replaced by the past when something suddenly awakens in Hind memories of her life in Egypt-of her childhood in a small town, of her parents, neighbors, school friends and teachers. Thinking that she is becoming more and more like her mother, Hind remembers how her mother always waited for her father to come in late or not at all, how often she cried, and how often her father would come back at night and yell at her: "Damn you! You think you're gonna tie me up with a bunch of kids?". Reviving pictures of the past, the writer often switches to the Egyptian colloquial language, literally gives her dialogues with her mother, other relatives, friends, names of children's games, dishes,

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It also uses traditional folk sayings and songs, i.e. it recreates the language culture in which it grew up.

Looking at the old houses near Green-wood Cemetery and the old Russian, Spanish, and Latin American women sitting on chairs in front of them, Hind remembers her grandmother, her father's mother, a Christian, and her wooden cross, which she clutched to her chest before she died.

The smell of beer wafting from the Coco Bar makes Hind remember how her father regularly sent her to get beer at the shop of Uncle Mahmoud, the father of her high school friend. In response to the reproaches of the eldest son, a devout Muslim, the father claimed that beer was "a great invention of the Pharaohs." My father was handsome, always immaculately dressed, and had graduated from the Faculty of Law at Cairo University, but he never worked, spending time in the company of friends and willingly giving legal advice to anyone who wanted to. The once rich family gradually became poorer, and elegant dresses from the mother's dowry were taken out of the chest only to be changed into dresses for the daughter. But it was her father, in his" good moments, " who told the children stories about Musa, Ya'qub, and Yusuf, accompanied by verses of the Koran, and it was he who instilled in little Hind's soul the desire to write stories and "become great" - to cut the sea with a stick, run through the desert, and let the water splash from under her feet. And she forgave her father for the beer. Once my father performed Hajj, but very quickly returned from Mecca and said to his family: "You can't live there, the Prophet ran away from there!".

And the crates of beer that Charlie's neighbor constantly carries to his apartment are, in Hind's eyes, proof of the emptiness of his existence, filled only with alcohol and women. She refuses to have a beer with him.

Unusual for a novel written by a woman, the beer motif serves several important functions: it serves as a thread between the heroine's past and her present, reveals a certain religious "freethinking" of her father and the emptiness of Charlie's life, and adds an additional touch to Hind's character. A woman orders a beer at the Coco Bar as a sign of internal protest against the attempts of the Arab Christian Said to "lure" her to the Christian faith (she thought that he just liked her!). Hind defends not his" Islam", but his spiritual freedom, his right to make any decisions independently. The desire to break free from traditional religious taboos was one of the main reasons for her departure to America. But suffering from an acute sense of loneliness, she sometimes prays in the evenings.

Like a pendulum, the narrative veers back and forth from Hind's route, back and forth to memories of the past, back and forth to the stories of her Brooklyn acquaintances. Constant "retreats" into the past, in the years of childhood and youth, detailed and vivid descriptions of people, scenes, events of those years that pop up in the memory of the heroine, suggest Proust and his "Search for lost time". M. at-Tahavi uses "Proustian" techniques in order to parallel the image and comparison of two ages his heroine, the way of life in an Egyptian provincial town and in Brooklyn, populated by diverse immigrants, creating a single narrative context. The language is also used for the same purpose. The one spoken by the residents of her hometown of Hind - folk, organic, absorbed the heritage of legends and folklore of the Egyptian colloquial (and at school she learns literary Arabic, and also reads a lot) - on the one hand, and foreign, forced, with a meager vocabulary of English, in which residents of Brooklyn communicate with each other-on the other. Language is an indicator of an individual's belonging to a particular human community, the basis and core of the national identity that Brooklyn residents lose over time.

All elements of the novel are functional, and numerous colorful artistic details scattered throughout the chapters are associatively interconnected. Recalling her hometown, Hind tells the stories of her high school friends who were taken out of school when they reached puberty and without asking for their consent,

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they gave it away, or rather sold it in marriage. The mother of one of her friends sold her daughter to Saudi Arabia, then turned the "attachment" of girls to this country as wives or servants into a lucrative trade. M. at-Tahawi does not moralize, the stories she tells are built up by themselves into a picture of morals that are inherited from generation to generation and easily fit into the laws of the established provincial state. the Egyptian town of the "market society".

There are a lot of single women in Brooklyn who make their own lives as best they can. They wear American dresses, learn English and strive to acquire a profession that gives earnings, marry immigrants like themselves, get divorced: these marriages are rarely successful. Both the independence and freedom of these women are limited not by any moral or religious prohibitions, but by the very conditions of their existence.

If the memories of the past are formed into a complete picture (the death of her father and mother, leaving for the United States), then the scenes of the present are fragmentary, Hind does not connect with anyone permanent or at least long-term relationships. References to the son are also becoming increasingly rare. The son loves his mother and comforts her — when she cries, he tells her: "Don't cry dear, I'm with you." But he no longer holds her hand on walks, goes ahead, demonstrating his "maturity". He does not want to leave America, although he admits that " living here is difficult." He wants to take the name Ben. Hind increasingly leaves him at home alone.

Hind has the closest relationship with two friends-Narak, an Armenian from Baalbek, who owns a computer game store, and Najib al-Khalili, who came from Nabulus in 1995 and runs an Oriental food and drink store. Funny Narak is never discouraged, and Khalili is very homesick and cherishes an impossible dream to return there one day. He calls America a "big lie" and a "meat grinder", claims that a person here is not free at all and is engaged only in earning daily bread and paying off a loan for a house and for the education of children for the rest of his life.

The story of old Lilith, who has preserved traces of her former beauty, elegant, fashionably dressed and hung with jewels, opens up the prospect of a possible future for Hind herself. Lilith, according to the existing legend, is the name of the first wife of Adam, who became an evil spirit and causes infertility on women and spoilage on babies [Myths of the peoples of the World, vol. 2, 1982, p. 55].

Lilith's real name is Leila al-Said, an educated Egyptian woman from a well-born family who almost lost her mind because of her husband's constant infidelities. At first she read "Anna Karenina" and cried, and then packed her suitcase and left, leaving her husband with a small son. Her rich husband sent her money. In America, she tried various, including extreme, types of" freedom " - first she studied at Princeton, tried to become an artist, and then lived in a hippie environment, was addicted to drugs, but never found happiness. She now lives with her estranged son, who became rich working with Yemeni immigrants who owned a successful construction company and married an American convert to Islam. Lilith often comes to sit in a cafe near Khalili's store, she has lost her memory and carries a note with her address in her purse (in case she can't go home on her own). Lilith dies, she is buried in a Muslim cemetery, her belongings are put out, as is customary in America, on the street for everyone to use. Emilia rummages through a pile of shoes, looking for "shoes from the time of Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley", Hind goes through the books in the boxes. Among them are Al-Isfahani's" One Thousand and One Nights "and" Book of Songs "in Arabic, Gibran's "Prophet", Persian poetry - all that Hind herself read in her childhood and youth. The dresses of the deceased remind Hind of those that were in the dowry of her mother and grandmother. She also finds Lilith's papers, notes, memoirs, self-portraits, and photos of her son

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different years. She's shocked, and it feels like it's all written in her own handwriting, like she's lived Lilith's life.

Old Emilia comforts Hind in her "wonderful" English-Russian language: "Don't worry, my daughter. This often happens in life, when everything is mixed up, and we believe what we want to believe, and then suddenly oblivion comes and erases the memory. And it is already difficult for us to understand who we are and who we were. Unfortunately, we are becoming very similar to each other. But you are still young, little girl, too young for oblivion to come to you "[At-Tahawi, 2010, p. 234].

Miral al-Tahawi's novel is completely devoid of melodrama and impresses with the power of the artistic truth of human characters, feelings, and destinies embedded in it. His characters, in any case, many of them undoubtedly have real prototypes. And the problem of women as individuals who seek to free themselves from the traditional bondage that bound them in their homeland and at the same time preserve their national and cultural identity is common to immigrants. After reading the novel, the symbolism of its name becomes clear: characters can admire America from Brooklyn Heights, but rarely do any of them manage to " cross the Brooklyn Bridge "and feel" at home " in America.

In an interview given by M. at-Tahawi during her stay in Egypt in August 2011, the writer admitted: "Yes, in this novel I became more free from the pressure of prohibitions and taboos. I've always wanted to break them. All this is connected with my upbringing, life in the provinces, where I could not write about what I want. Away from this life, I got rid of my fears and can write about a woman's attitude to her body, about the connection with a man. I am no longer bothered by self-censorship, nor do I care about how it will be perceived by readers and critics. Age also matters. I want to tell the truth, no matter how painful it is. I am no longer afraid of scandals, I do not fear for the honor of my family. I learned to treat myself critically, not trying to create the image of an ideal heroine" [At-Tahawi, 2011, p. 31].

In the same interview, M. al-Tahawi also spoke about the attitude towards Arabs in America: "When you live inside a different culture, contradictions arise willingly or unwittingly. This is exactly what is happening to the second generation of Arabs in America. The question is how to preserve your identity, which is constantly under threat... This society is not able to understand the Arab culture, to separate it from the political struggle... Islam is always associated with violence... In North Carolina, I was always surrounded by conservatives, " tea drinkers." Nearby, in Florida, the Koran was burned in churches. And I felt that I belonged to a culture marked by terrorism and therefore suspicious... While teaching Arabic, I was an enemy to the students, most of whom serve in the US Army. They learn the language for political purposes. And I was forced to defend it on a daily basis, the language of Arabic culture, which I criticize elsewhere. There was a certain split personality " [ibid.].

The writer also expressed her attitude to Islamic fundamentalism: "A few years ago, I spoke about how the situation in Egyptian universities has changed, especially in provincial ones, where there is a fertile ground for extreme trends. Then my words caused a storm of indignation. And when I went up to the lectern and started giving a lecture, the "brothers" all got up and left the audience, saying that they could not be taught by a woman, and even without a hijab. I was sent threatening letters" [ibid.].

A short article entitled "Intellectuals on the Reservation of a Religious State", published in the Akhbar al-Adab newspaper and signed by Dr. Hazim Ahmad Husni, sheds light on the situation of the secular-minded Egyptian intelligentsia:

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"Since Taha Hussein published his book The Future of Culture in Egypt three-quarters of a century ago, al-Azhar and the Christian Church have been a source of particular concern for the fate of any secular cultural endeavor in Egypt, as the cultural movement as a whole has resisted the temptation to call for the elimination of religious structures, whether Islamic or Christian. The cultural movement has advocated and continues to advocate for the reform of the religious organization, for stimulating its development, which would help it adapt to the realities of the new century and interact with the renewal trends in the life of Egypt and Egyptians, without inciting to counteract them or ignoring them" [Husni, 2011, p.24].

In fact, the origins of this situation do not date back to the publication of Taha Hussein's book " The Future of Culture in Egypt "(1939), written after Taha Hussein was brought to trial in 1925 for his "disrespect" for the text of the Koran (in his book "On Pre-Islamic Poetry") and since por was careful what he said. The bold idea that "religion is the friend of science" belongs to the reformer of Islam Sheikh Muhammad Abdo for his time (the end of the XIX century). The attempt to preserve the syncretism of science and faith during the modernization of religion had serious consequences for literature, and M. Abdo's thought still dominates the consciousness of a significant part of the Egyptian creative intelligentsia.

But a significant part of the literary community opposes religious censorship, the creation of a commission on religious affairs in the Egyptian Supreme Council for Culture, and "political Islam" in general.

The most sensational work of recent years is devoted to the problem of religious consciousness - the historical novel by Yusuf Zaydan (b.1958) "Azazel" (2008), which broke all sales records, was reprinted in the same year, and has now passed 20 reprints. It has been translated into 7 languages and won the 2009 Arabic Booker Prize. A scholar-historian, doctor of Islamic Philosophy, specialist in Arabic (Muslim and Christian) manuscript heritage, director of the Manuscript Center of the Library of Alexandria and author of two more novels ("Shadow of the Serpent", 2007, and "Nabataean", 2010), Yusuf Zaydan wrote a work of fiction that has become a new word in Arabic novelistics. He was able to recreate in it the era of changing religions and civilizations, namely the era of the establishment of Christianity in the Middle East (the action of the novel takes place in the middle of the fifth century AD), its transformation into an official imperial religion and the displacement, breaking of the former "pagan" religions. When Christians were no longer victims of persecution, but along with the old gods, Hellenistic science was also expelled, cultural monuments were destroyed, and Christian fanatics brutally dealt with the "polytheists". And at the same time, there were schisms in Christianity itself.

The novel is stylized as a manuscript allegedly found during excavations of the ruins of a monastery near Aleppo-a technique that has been repeatedly used in world historical romanistics. The text in Aramaic on parchment leaves belongs to a monk from Upper Egypt, who described the events of his own life and his turbulent time. The hero is not only a monk, he is also a doctor and a poet - in the church school in his native city of Akhmim and in the monastery in Nag Hammadi, he read the philosophical works of Plotinus, the life of Pythagoras, the poems of Homer, the dramas of Aeschylus and Sophocles, that is, he is well acquainted with the heritage of ancient science and culture. He is a person who thinks, reasons, and therefore often doubts and strives to get to the truth. He leaves his native place after Christian fanatics on the steps of the temple of the Egyptian god Khnum (who sculpts human bodies from clay) killed his father, also a Christian, mistaking him for an adept of polytheism. He goes to Alexandria, not yet fully Christianized, where he intends to improve in the art of healing. There, accidentally finding himself in the house of a rich Sicilian merchant, he gets acquainted with magnificent works of ancient art, with a collection of books from different fields of knowledge. He admires listening to the public lectures of the scientist and beautiful woman Hypatia,

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a philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, and witnesses her terrible death at the hands of fanatical Christians. Shocked by the scene of brutal violence, he goes on foot to Jerusalem, performs the rite of self-baptism on the way, and takes the name Hypa in memory of Hypatia. In Jerusalem, he meets and becomes close to Bishop Nestorius of Antioch, on his recommendation he goes to a monastery near Aleppo, where he becomes the caretaker of the monastery library, is engaged in healing and writes poetry.

A wide panorama of historical and religious events is projected onto the individual consciousness of an educated and thinking person of that era. His inner doubts and torments of Hypa, his temptations-carnal attraction to the pagan Octavia, who believes in all gods, and irresistible love for the young Christian Martha, his constant reflections on the essence and dogmas of faith, about the quarrel between the Bishop of Alexandria Cyril and the Bishop of Constantinople Nestorius (about whether the Holy Virgin was the Mother of God or Mother Messiahs) are reflected in endless arguments with the devil-Azazel, who regularly appears to the monk, pushes him to "sinful" thoughts and actions and forces him to write down everything that he has seen and experienced. Hypa resists the devil's instigation to keep records, does not stop waiting for a sign from the Lord, but does not receive it. He addresses God for the last time: "And now Your sign, O Lord, will keep me from writing, but if you leave me alone with myself, I will write it down" [Zaidan, 2008, p.14]. When the manuscript is finished, he carefully rolls it up, puts it in a wooden box, buries it under the monastery wall, and leaves the monastery no one knows where, driven by the desire to be a free man and not participate in the scholastic disputes of church hierarchs fighting for earthly power.

As for Azazel, the novel convinces the reader that the devil does not exist separately from a person, but embodies the "dark" side of his soul - weaknesses, passions, fears that encourage a person to do things that contradict his own understanding of morality or the ideas of his contemporaries about moral norms. Azazel himself reveals his essence, saying: "I come to you from yourself, with you and in you... I am the bearer of your burden, your chimeras and pain " [Zaidan, 2008, p. 100].

The novel contains quotations from the Old Testament, the gospels, as well as from the works of Plotinus and other ancient authors - those enlightened priests with whom Hypa communicates are well acquainted with Greek science and do not reject it indiscriminately, even seeing in some of its ideas the "roots" of the Christian faith. There are also references to Quranic ayats in the text. The Aramaic language in which the manuscript is written was learned by Hypa as an adult, his native language is Coptic, he knows Greek from school, and then learns colloquial Arabic, "which does not yet have a written language," as Hypa reports in his manuscript. In the margins of the manuscript, there are also comments in Arabic that belong to an unknown Arab scribe who once found the manuscript, read it, and buried it again "until better times." The multiplicity and interaction of languages of the described era is one of the artistic illustrations of the thesis (formulated and substantiated by Yusuf Zaydan in his work "Arab Theosophy and Religious Violence"). the fact that three monotheistic religions-Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - are essentially different phenomena of the same faith [Zaydan, 2011, p. 21].

And Hypa writes in his manuscript:: "After much reflection, I realized that the gods, for all their differences, are not in temples and giant structures, but in the hearts of people who believe in them... My faith is based on many doubts" [Zaidan, 2008, p. 194].

The novel "Azazel" caused a stormy and contradictory response. It was unanimously condemned by religious circles, primarily Christian, but also Muslim. The writer was accused of distorting or simply not knowing history, of desecrating shrines, and even

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that he " passes off his work as a manuscript of an Egyptian monk written in Aramaic in the fifth century." Serious, with a solid source base, Zaidan's novel was compared, absolutely wrongly, with Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code [http://st-takla.org].

Literary critic Muhammad Eid praised Azazel as "a magnificent novel... putting Yusuf Zaydan among the writers we are proud of... a novel in which history does not crowd art... In addition, the author invades a field that has not yet been touched by writers due to the lack of sources and difficulties in working with them" [Id, 2008, p. 30].

The appearance of the novels listed above confirms the tendency that I noted earlier for Egyptian authors of the 1990s generation to leave the focus on depicting the inner world of the hero, who is closed in on himself, suffering, has lost his former ideals, and does not see a perspective for himself in a reality that is alien to him. The characters of the new novels are not limited to the rejection of the world around them. They want not only to understand and comprehend it - its contradictions and conflicts - but also to find their place in it. Either, like the hero of "Al-Effendi", by succeeding in the world of money (for this choice of hero, fate punishes), or by jointly opposing cruelty and violence ("Angel of last Hope"), or by defending their individual freedom ("Brooklyn Heights","Azazel"). Deepening into the inner world of the character is balanced in these novels with the reflection of the realities of the world in which the characters were born and exist, the phenomena that cause them rejection. And if in the novel "Al-Efendi" the "market society" is condemned from the standpoint of the traditional (in fact, far from always observed) Muslim morality of "non-possessiveness" and "fair trade", then the heroine of "Brooklyn Heights" leaves her homeland, trying to free herself from traditional prohibitions and double morals that make a woman's life unbearable, thereby more-talented, modernly educated and self-aware full-fledged person. According to Monk Gipa in Azazel, religious violence is incompatible with true faith. And the "feverish" style of the novel" Angel of Last Hope " makes us perceive this work as a manifesto against violence committed against an entire nation. And wherever and whenever the action of the novel takes place, the authors use a variety of genre forms to express their vision of the current situation in Egypt, their attitude to the problems that are traditional for modern Egyptian literature, the severity of which is steadily increasing, approaching a critical point.

Immediately before the "January 25 revolution", a work appeared that directly predicts future events and even describes how and how the revolution will take place. It is from this point of view that the novel of the novelist and playwright Muhammad Salamawi (b.1945) "Butterfly Wings" ("Ajnih al-Farash"), published in January 2011, just before the events in at-Tahrir Square, and reprinted in February and April, is of interest.

The genre form of the novel is difficult to determine, and it can be called a "revolutionary melodrama". The author's choice of main characters is remarkable: Doha-the wife of a high-ranking official, one of the leaders of the ruling party, a fashion designer-flies to Milan for the presentation of the season's models, she is going to present a collection of dresses with flowers and cut reminiscent of butterflies-a symbol of the birth of a new life; Ashraf al-Zaini, her random neighbor on the plane, a famous architect, One of the opposition leaders is heading to Palermo for an international conference of civil society organizations. He intends to make a presentation there based on the theory of Butterfly Effect 5 (the butterfly's influence on the world climate: the flapping of wings

5 The butterfly effect is a term used in the natural sciences to denote the properties of a chaotic system: a small influence on the system can have large and unpredictable effects somewhere else and at another time.

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in one corner of the world affects the movement of winds in another, remote). The point of the theory, as Ashraf explains to Doha, is that any creature, even the smallest, can influence the universe, and this is the power of civil society. Doha does not like her husband and is not interested in politics in principle, but after talking with Ashraf for the entire flight, she is imbued with his ideas. Young people inadvertently meet in a Roman restaurant, at a fashion presentation in Milan, or at a conference in Palermo, and their mutual feelings grow stronger day by day. Doha changes its mind about showing its dresses in Milan, realizing that its models should be designed in the national style, and not copy Western models. Ashraf, in a speech in Palermo, speaks of the "usurpation of political power by the ruling parties in third world countries" and how civil society, which is just emerging in Egypt, is making efforts to reform political life and introduce the principle of democratic transfer of power, demanding to change the constitution to this end.

The fate of the supporting characters in the novel also reflects a number of current social problems in Egypt and the involvement of young people in its political life.

Back in Cairo, Doha demands a divorce from her husband and takes part in the demonstrations that have begun, feeling "reborn"in the crowd of demonstrators. Ashraf speaks from the podium, denouncing "this corrupt party, the party of self-interest, the party of dictatorship and arbitrariness," and demands a decent life for the people. The police disperse the demonstrators, and the hero and heroine of the novel are arrested.

This is followed by a wave of protests demanding the release of all those arrested, which is joined by "numerous supporters from different walks of life." They communicate with each other via the Internet and coordinate their actions, demonstrations are rolling all over Cairo and spreading to other cities in Egypt. The author describes in detail the mood of the demonstrators, quotes slogans on posters and chanted chants. He had, of course, witnessed mass demonstrations by Cairians in previous years.

The government intends to deploy troops, but the noble Minister of Defense refuses to comply with this order, saying that "the army exists to protect the native land from invaders, and not to kill Egyptians." The crisis is growing. Crowds of demonstrators seize government offices, the headquarters of the ruling party. Some members of Parliament and the police go over to their side. The government is forced to announce its resignation. A coalition is formed representing the forces of the people (what these forces are, is not specified). It is headed by Dr. Ashraf al-Zaini. The country begins to calm down, life returns to normal, and in the fate of the main and secondary characters of the novel comes a happy ending-three couples of lovers are going to celebrate weddings.

The novel does not attempt to delve into the causes of protest moods in society, does not specifically name the socio-political forces involved in protest actions, only emphasizes their mass character. The main demand of the protesters is to change the constitution and approve the principle of transferring power "democratically", they easily take power into their own hands thanks to the non-interference of the army. Exactly how events turn out in the future is beyond the scope of the novel, which is understandable, since it was written before they actually began. A superficial view of the situation, from the height of a butterfly fluttering from flower to flower, does not allow the author to discern either the essence of the confrontation brewing in society, or the difference of interests and positions within the forces opposing the authorities. In particular, there is no mention of "political Islam" or the role of radical Islamists as an active and influential social force. Although Khalid al-Khamisi's book "Conversations in a Taxi", published five years before the events in at-Tahrir Square, also noted this role as an important factor shaping public sentiment,

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and the willingness of a large part of Egyptians to vote for the Muslim Brotherhood, which then actually happened.

The novel "Butterfly Wings" mainly reflects the mood of those young, modern-educated Internet users who believed or hoped that with the change of power and with the change of the constitution, democracy would come to the country and a new life would begin.

The article considers only a small part of the novels published in Egypt during the first decade of the XXI century. But they also suggest that the growth of discontent in various strata of society and its causes were somehow reflected in the fiction of this period.

The "revolution of January 25, 2011" itself is still reflected mainly in poetry that praises the heroes of the confrontation in at-Tahrir Square and mourns its victims, in reports, diary entries and memoirs of participants and witnesses of the events, as well as in street graffiti, photos of which are published daily in newspapers.

In fact, the more distant results of these events are still far from clear. Right up to the presidential elections, the nature and prospects of this revolution, the fourth in Egypt, were actively discussed in Egyptian periodicals and various public and literary forums (if we count from the uprising of Ahmed Orabipasha in 1882-the army's action against the infringement of national rights of Egyptians, which ended with the British occupation of the country). After the election of the president and, especially, after the approval of the new constitution, it became obvious that the cultural situation in Egypt will not be the same, which means that serious changes should be expected in literature.

list of literature

Ala ad-Dib. The novel stopped at Naguib Mahfouz (Ar-Rivaya tawakkafat inda Naguib Mahfouz) / / Akhbar al-adab. Cairo, 11.12.2011.

Zaydan I. Azazel. Cairo: Dar al-Shurukh Publ., 2008.

Zaydan I. Arab theosophy and the origins of religious violence (Al-Lahut al-Arabi wa usul al-unf ad-dini). 6th ed. Cairo: Dar al-Shurukh Publ., 2011.

Eid, Muhammad al-Sayyid. Azazel... or the evil that lurks in us (Azazel... au ash-sharr al-kamin fina) / / Akhbar al-adab. Cairo, 14.9.2008.

Kirpichsnko V. N. New phenomena in the Egyptian romance of the beginning of the XXI century // Praise. To the 90th anniversary of I. M. Filshtinsky, Moscow, 2008.

Kirpichsnko V. N., Safronov V. V. Istoriya egiptskoi literatury XIX-XX vv. Vol. 2. Moscow, 2003.

Myths of the Peoples of the World, vol. 2. Moscow: Sovetskaya entsiklopediya, 1982.

Nagi M. Morning Song (Lahn al-sabah). Cairo: Dar Misr al-arabiyya, 1994.

Nagi M. Arab maqams (Maqamat arabiyya). Cairo: Dar al-Hilal, 1999.

Nagi M. Al-Efendi. Cairo: Dar al-Hilal, 2008.

Nagi Muhammad / / Akhbar al-adab. Cairo, 30.11.2008.

Nuh S. Angel of Last Hope (Malak al-fursa al-ahira). Cairo: Dar al-Fikra Publ., 2007.

Salamawi M. Wings of a butterfly (Ajnih al-farash). Cairo: ad-Dar al-mieriyya al-lubnaniyya, 2011.

At-Tahawi M. Shater (Al-Khiba). Cairo: Dar al-Shurukh Publ., 1986.

At-Tahawi, M. Brooklyn Heights, 3rd Ed. Cairo: Dar al-Mirit Publ., 2010.

At-Tahawi M At Last... I got rid of my family (Ahiran.. takharrartu min ailati) / / Akhbar al-adab. Cairo, 28.8.2011.

Al-Khamisi X. Conversations in a taxi (Taxi... khawadis al-mashawir). Cairo, 2006.

Khusni Kh.-A. Intelligentsia v reservatsii religioznogo gosudarstva (Al-Musakkafuna fi hazirat ad-dawla ad-diniyya) [Intelligentsia in the reservation of the religious state (Al-Musakkafuna fi hazirat ad-dawla ad-diniyya)]. Cairo, 3.7.2011.

http://st-takla.org/.../076-Azazel-Yosscf-Zidan-Fakc-Story-Book-Scapcgoot.html

Wcidncr S. Ila Maidan at-Tahrir min fadlaq / / Fikr wa fann. Münchcn. 2011. № 90.

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