Yusuf Idris goes East: Asia as a mirror for Egypt

The encounter between the Arab World and the West, often embodied by the love story between an Arab student abroad and a European girl, was a key trope in the early development of modern Arab fiction at the turn of the 20th century. Over the following decades, this theme was further developed in various aesthetic forms by addressing other geographies and exchanges in the new socio-political scenario. On the other hand, the relations between the Arab World and Asia are less common in the literary representation and overlooked by literary criticism, with the exception of the encounter with the Soviet Union and some satellite states during the Cold War. This chapter explores the literary representation of Arab-Asian relations by examining the journalistic travelogue Iktishāf qārra (Discovering a Continent, 1972) by the famous Egyptian writer Yūsuf Idrīs (1927-1991), written on his return from a trip to India and the Far East. The representation of Asian societies in this work is a mirror for Egypt: Japan in particular is viewed through the prism of economy, spirituality, and literature presented as a source of inspiration for the renewal of Egyptian society. In the triangulation between Egypt, Asia, and the West, the internal debates about identity and modernity are strategically projected to Asia through the writer’s discursive strategies, as examined in the travelogue's chapters about Mishima and the Berlin conference.