Textual Integrity and Fragmentation in the Novel Banat Qebli by Maher Mehran

Banat Qebli by Maher Mehran, the Egyptian literary figure, employs special narrative techniques, which makes it impossible to subsume under classic novels. He composed the novel artistically in fragmented format. Text fragmentation means that the novel is divided into several coherent parts in coordination with other topics and stories the author wants to narrate. The artistic element is that the author creates a new pattern of narration by intermingling different stories to build up the novel and text. Coherence is brought about by interweaving textual pieces. The present study tries to discover and specify the narrative techniques of this author in his novel according to the descriptive-analytic method and identifies the major motivations for these techniques. The novel of Banat Qebli (the girls of south) includes two stories, the story of “Fahim Al-Aghili” and the story of “Al-soafa”. The former is about a revenge case in Saeed, Egypt, and the latter is about cruelty and repression against women in the region. The most important conclusions are that the story of “Fahim Al-Aghili” is based on “text fragmentation” technique and Maher Mehran uses this technique in congruence with the content, characters, the intentions of the author and in order to involve the reader in the story developments. The story of “Al-Soafa” is narrated according to the traditional narrative methods which involve a beginning, an ending, and other classic elements, as these elements are appropriate to reveal the oppression of women in this society.