Resumen de From the Ashes:: Sufi Literature in the Modern Arabic Science-Fiction Novel
Sufism, while popular among Western SFF writers, is a rarity in the Arab world: the very birthplace of Sufism. For the longest time modern Arab literature has neglected the rich literary tradition represented by Sufism, in part thanks to the heritage of Orientalism. As a consequence, Arab SFF authors have passed up a tremendous opportunity to have their own distinctive subgenre grounded in spiritualism and mysticism, and one that automatically resonates with foreign readers given Sufism’s long and proud cosmopolitan credentials. This situation however is changing and rapidly as Arab authors writing in fields of hard sci-fi, satire, magic realism and horror/fantasy take up Sufi themes, tropes and storytelling techniques. Egypt is taken as a test case of the rise of this new subgenre, involving the works of successive generations of authors, in addition to some other Arab and Muslim writers. In the process the false division between the material and spiritual, or the Western and Eastern, can be bridged once and for and to the benefit of SFF.
