A Thesis at UoB Reveals the Circumstances of Identity and Narrative In The Works of The Novelist Abdo Khal

Sakhir – University of Bahrain (Ali Al-Sabbagh)
13 August 2022
A scientific thesis at the University of Bahrain (UoB) discussed the topic of “Identity and Narrative in the Discourse of Abdo Khal the Novelist”, by working on representations of cultural narrative identity in the works of the Saudi novelist Abdo Khal, winner of the Arab Booker Prize.
The study concluded that Abdo Khal’s narrative project includes a clear vision and a specific message, which sheds light on human issues wherever they may be, by exposing social and cultural imbalances, and so on.
The study – done by the student in the Higher Diploma and Master’s Program in Arabic Language and Literature, Wadha Abdullah Al-Mahdi – indicated that the issue of identity – whether it is an individual identity or a collective identity – came prominent in his discourse, as several topics are reproduced from this major issue, such as the struggle between the same and the other, the aggravation and loss of identity, and other topics that contributed to enriching the semantic structures of the narrative discourse.
The thesis of the student Al-Mahdi was discussed by an exam committee recently, which consisted of: Head of the Department of Arabic Language and Islamic Studies and Associate Professor of Narratives and Modern Literary Criticism, Dr. Diya Abdullah Al-Ka’abi, as the supervisor of the thesis, Professor of Literary Theory and Stylistics, Prof. Ahmed Mohammed Weis as an internal examiner, and Professor of Criticism and Theory, Head of the Narrative Unit at King Saud University in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Prof. Dr. Mujeeb Saeed Al-Adwani, as an external examiner.
The study was conducted as part of the requirements for obtaining a master’s degree in Arabic language and literature, and it found that the writer sought, through his narrative discourse, to shed light on the crises that identity is going through, wishing to find solutions to them. Therefore, his discourse was filled with various worlds, worlds with a mixture of reality and imagination, old narrative, and in which many opposing dualities meet, which reflect the extent of the struggles that man faces, such as life and death, love and hate, wealth and poverty.
Also, the study relied on the cultural criticism method, which seeks to reveal the implicit cultural patterns, as well as the cultural semiotics method, which is consistent with the cultural criticism method, as the text is not limited, but rather open to different forms.

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