Stillborn

Arwa Salih (1953–1997) was an Egyptian writer, translator, scholar, and political activist. A leading participant in Egypt’s radical student movement of the 1970s, she later served on the political bureau of the Egyptian Communist Workers Party. After leaving organized politics, she wrote critically about the movement’s culture, intellectual life, and failures. Samah Selim is professor of Arabic literature at Rutgers University and chair of the Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures. Her scholarship examines modern Arabic literature, translation, and literary history. She is a founding member of the Cairo-based Turjoman Translators Collective and an award-winning translator from Arabic.

• Translator’s IntroductionAn Unavoidable Preface on Militant KitschIntroduction  Chapter OneThe Intellectual as Pessimist  Chapter TwoThe Afterlives of the Student-Movement Generation  Chapter ThreeThe Intellectual in Love  AppendixPersonal Documents  PostscriptViolets Are Blue