Continuity and discontinuity in the politics of the sixties generation: A reassessment

ʿAbd al-Sattār Nāṣir (1947–2013) belonged to the group of Iraqi writers and intellectuals called Jīl al-Sittināt "the Sixties Generation", which dominated the cultural scene at the time. This article examines Nāṣir as a driven writer, who initially wrote out of a morally induced reaction to expose the suffering and brutalization of all Iraqi peoples and ethnicities by a controlling totalitarian regime, and as a once-incarcerated author of brave novels he hoped would someday catalyze a popular overthrow of the lawless, abusive leaders, thereby ending the fears and violence possessing Iraq’s body politic. Two themes -- the destruction wreaked by those with extraordinary power and their use of lies and deception to control the people –- are central to the three novels chosen as representative of Nāṣir’s oeuvre: Abū al-Rīsh (2002), Niṣf al-Aḥzān 'Half Sorrows' (2000) and Qushūr al-Badhinjān 'Eggplant Peels' (2007). In these three novels, Nāṣir exposes the unimaginable terror, violence and cruelty of Saddām Ḥusayn and his henchmen, as well as their propaganda, which consisted of lies and deception. Saddām is depicted as a ruler who presents himself as an inspiring revolutionary, but in fact is a tyrant who deceives the citizens, subjecting them to brutal control and leading them into deadly wars. Following George Orwell’s 1984, Nāṣir’s literary corpus attempts to rip the masks from the faces of the dictator and his lackeys, who oppress the people, deny them any freedom of thought and keep them under constant surveillance.

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3. Political Alienation and the Sixties Generation

Mobilizing Japanese Youth ◽

10.1515/9781501756337-006 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 68-99

Keyword(s):

Political Alienation ◽

The Sixties ◽

Sixties Generation

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Beyond the Barricades: The Sixties Generation Grows Up.

Social Forces ◽

10.2307/2579682 ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 69 (2) ◽

pp. 635

Author(s):

William R. Beer ◽

Jack Whalen ◽

Richard Flacks

Keyword(s):

The Sixties ◽

Sixties Generation

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Beyond the Sixties

Space in Modern Egyptian Fiction ◽

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474427647.003.0006 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 184-194

Author(s):

Yasmine Ramadan

Keyword(s):

The State ◽

The Novel ◽

Revolutionary Change ◽

Career Trajectories ◽

The Sixties ◽

Cultural Sphere ◽

Contemporary Writers ◽

Sixties Generation ◽

The Impact

The book concludes with a discussion of the continued importance of this generation beyond the decade of the sixties. It traces the transformation of the sixties generation from an emerging group of writers to established members of the literary and cultural sphere in Egypt, who came to occupy positions of prominence in the field. It presents the career trajectories of the figures at the heart of this book including; the reception of their fiction; the conferral of awards; and the translation of their works. In doing so it also explores the impact of the sixties generation upon contemporary writers, particularly the nineties generation in Egypt. Despite the differences in political and ideological positions, the struggles of the writers of the sixties generation are not wholly divorced from those of their successors. Both were generations contending with the aftermath of revolutionary change, the realities of the failings of democratic projects, and the role of artists and intellectuals in confronting the injustices of the state. As the chapters of this book show, with the sixties generation came the disappearance of the idealised Egyptian nation in the novel. The works of their successors continue to grapple with its aftermath.

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