Westernization, Colonialism, and Cosmopolitanism. Literary Voices from the Pre-revolutionary Egypt

Egyptian cultural orientations in the late 19th and early 20th century pointed towards the North shore of the Mediterranean. Study missions, journeys aimed to acquire knowledge and technical skills, and diplomatic delegations posed cultural, political, and economic elites in direct contact with the modern European ideas and achievements. At the same time an opposite migration interested the main Egyptian cities, widening foreign communities. As evidence of that time and those societies, passed into history as cosmopolitan, many traces including literary works remain. With this contribution I intend to propose a reading of the age through the oeuvres of authors who participated in the controversial relationship between Egyptians and Europeans, sometimes creating an idealized image of confluence between different cultures, in a context that, more realistically, saw Egypt subject to Western colonialism.