A fascinating and insightful exploration of the importance and many uses of the idea of the West in Egyptian literature, and an important contribution to our understanding of Occidentalism.

Alastair Bonnett, Professor of Social Geography, Newcastle University, UK

In this fine study, Lorenzo Casini questions the well-worn oppositions between 'East' and 'West', 'tradition' and 'modernity' to reveal a pattern of Egyptian writers and thinkers – some well-known, others ripe for rediscovery-using the idea of Europe to reflect on their identity. His readings transform the connotations of 'Occidentalism' from a term that implies the servile imitation of imported ideas to a more muscular engagement that raises important questions about language, literature, the state, and society.

Ziad Elmarsafy, Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature, University of St Andrews, UK

Timely and Insightful. Occidentalism and the Egyptian Novel is a cogent and original intervention in the debates about the role of the 'West' in the 'Eastern' literary imaginary and modernity. Lorenzo Casini moves the discussions of Egyptian modernisation outside the familiar frames of European influence and Edward Said's Orientalism and refocuses our attention on the representations of the 'West' and 'Western' women in the Egyptian novel. The politics and poetics of the representations of the 'West' in the Egyptian novel, Occidentalism, do not mirror Orientalism, but are nuanced Egyptian responses to cultural encounters in the long 20th century.

Wen-chin Ouyang, Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature, SOAS, University of London, UK