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Through a detailed study of Mayy Ziy?dah´s literary salon, Boutheina Khaldi sheds light on salon and epistolary culture in early twentieth-century Egypt and its role in Egypt´s Nahdah (Awakening). Bringing together history, women´s studies, Arabic literature, post-colonial literature, and media studies, she highlights the important and previously little-discussed contribution of Arabic women to the project of modernity.

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The Ambivalent Modernity Project: From Napoleon´s Expedition to Mayy Ziyadah´s Salon The Salon as a Public Sphere They Discuss The Letter as Annex Style as Persuasion: Pleading the Case for the New

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"In writing this book about Mayy Ziy?dah and her early twentieth-century Cairo salon, which for the first time brought together the male and female literati of the Arab world, Boutheina Khaldi has contributed a crucial missing element in the construction of the modern Arabic literary canon." - Miriam Cooke, professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Duke University

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Boutheina Khaldi is Assistant Professor of Arabic and Translation Studies at the American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.

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