Trauma in Bahaa Taher’s Fiction: “I, the King, Have Come”

Abstract

The question of trauma in postcolonial Arabic literature has not yet been fully studied. Until recently, literary criticism concentrated on cases in the “white” and Western literature. The present paper opens some fundamental questions in the field, mapping what it means to talk about “trauma” or the experience of violence in the fiction written by the sixties generation in Egypt. In particular, the paper focuses on trauma representation in Bahaa Taher’s 1985 story “I, the King, Have Come”.

The significance of the study of trauma representations in contemporary Egyptian fiction, commonly referred to as the “new wave” by literary scholars, from the standpoint of poststructuralist, socio-cultural, and postcolonial theories can hardly be overestimated.

Baaha Taher belongs to the sixties generation of Egyptian writers. In his “I, the King, Have Come” the story takes place in the mystical desert during the 20s and 30s of the past century. The plot unfolds against the background of British colonial rule. Filled with mystical symbolism weighing Western versus Eastern personalities and spiritualities, the story is narrated in such a way as to unmask the morally and politically troubling aspects of every day and the psychological effects of colonial domination.