Alienation, the Fantastic, and Escape from History. Majīd Ṭūbiyā’s Short Stories in the Egypt of the Sixties

In the Egypt of the ’60s Maǧīd Ṭūbiyā writes some short stories characterized by the use of the fantastic. This literary device is essential to the author’s purpose of providing solutions to seemingly unsolvable situations. The image of the Egyptian society which hardly tries to make a Revolution scrolls in the background, in a climate of suspicion, control and coercion which every citizen is subject to. The only salvation from alienation is the escape, an escape from History in which the fantastic frames unusual narratives, from “Vostok reaches the moon” to “The following days”, “Those with bulging eyes”, and “Five unread newspapers”, where unlikely heroes pursue their dream of liberation through invention, subversion of the laws of reality, and metamorphosis.