Alternative Histories in Youssef Ziedan's Azazeel: Historiographic Metafiction in the Contemporary Arabic Historical Novel
Drawing on Linda Hutcheon's theory, this article reads Azazeel as a historiographic metafiction. It argues that the novel not only denounces the so-called religious, or religiously-motivated, violence but also has an additional epistemological import, articulated in the novel's historiographic metafictional narrative which, in accordance with Hutcheon's theory, provides an alternative history that foregrounds the 'narrativity' of historical narratives and represents the past from a 'marginal' perspective to question the absolute authority of metanarratives, undermine monolithic notions of knowledge, and develop a balanced production and dissemination of knowledge. The article examines the novel's use of historiographic metafictional techniques which reflect its thematic content and its espousal of the postmodern ideology of diversity and plurality. The article demonstrates that, without denying its heritage, Azazeel engages with the global postmodern condition, locates the Arabic historical novel within the wider context of world historical fiction, and opens up new avenues for research on historiographic metafiction.