Mohamed, M. (2022). Visual Storytelling in Husayn’s Al-Ayyam (The Days). CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education, 77(1), 71-94. doi: 10.21608/opde.2022.241789
Maha Soliman Mohamed. "Visual Storytelling in Husayn’s Al-Ayyam (The Days)". CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education, 77, 1, 2022, 71-94. doi: 10.21608/opde.2022.241789
Mohamed, M. (2022). 'Visual Storytelling in Husayn’s Al-Ayyam (The Days)', CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education, 77(1), pp. 71-94. doi: 10.21608/opde.2022.241789
Mohamed, M. Visual Storytelling in Husayn’s Al-Ayyam (The Days). CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education, 2022; 77(1): 71-94. doi: 10.21608/opde.2022.241789
Visual Storytelling in Husayn’s Al-Ayyam (The Days)
The objective of this paper is to take us on a journey with one of the modern Arabic autobiographies, Al-Ayyam (the Days) by Taha Husayn—Egypt’s most prominent man of letters, whose controversial works instigated dispute. Administering a close textual analysis and a substantial critical evaluation of Husayn’s narratology and the type of narration in Al-Ayyam (The Days), the present paper aims to go beyond being a mere survey of his well-known sympathetic struggle against blindness, poverty, and ignorance. Instead, it aims to get to the bottom of the premises behind his unique narrative technique. For this purpose, the study administers a new perspective by highlighting Husayn’s peculiar implementation of the first- and third-person methods of narration interchangeably, and his unusual utilization of a vivid quantity of special visual cinematic descriptions. Exploring the premises of Husayn’s utilization of this innovative narrative technique, the present study finally reaches the conclusion that the noticeable distance between the author and the narrator of the autobiography provides Husayn with the space to describe his life experiences in a visual cinematic manner, rather than creating a generic ambiguity.