Arabic Science Fiction

This book traces the roots of Arabic science fiction through classical and medieval Arabic literature, undertaking close readings of formative texts of Arabic science fiction via a critical framework developed from the work of Western critics of Western science fiction, Arab critics of Arabic science fiction and postcolonial theorists of literature. Ian Campbell investigates the ways in which Arabic science fiction engages with a theoretical concept he terms 'double estrangement' wherein these texts provide social or political criticism through estrangement and simultaneously critique their own societies' inability or refusal to engage in the sort of modernization that would lead the Arab world back to leadership in science and technology.

Ian Campbell is Associate Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature at Georgia State University, USA. He has published articles in major science fiction journals on Arabic science fiction and also undertakes research in postcolonial Moroccan fiction. He is the author of Labyrinths, Intellectuals and the Revolution: The Arabic-Language Moroccan Novel, 1957-72 (2013).