Unknown Past: Layla Murad, the Jewish-Muslim Star of Egypt - Hanan Hammad

Descriere Unknown Past: Layla Murad, the Jewish-Muslim Star of Egypt - Hanan Hammad

\n \nA biography of the Cinderella of Egyptian cinema-the veneration and rumors that surrounded an unparalleled career, and the gendered questions that unsettled Egyptian society.\n \nLayla Murad (1918-1995) was once the highest-paid star in Egypt, and her movies were among the top-grossing in the box office. She starred in 28 films, nearly all now classics in Arab musical cinema. In 1955 she was forced to stop acting-and struggled for decades for a comeback. Today, even decades after her death, public interest in her life continues, and new generations of Egyptians still love her work. Unknown Past recounts Murad's extraordinary life-and the rapid political and sociocultural changes she witnessed.\n \nHanan Hammad writes a story centered on Layla Murad's persona and legacy, and broadly framed around a gendered history of twentieth-century Egypt. Murad was a Jew who converted to Islam in the shadow of the first Arab-Israeli war. Her career blossomed under the Egyptian monarchy and later gave a singing voice to the Free Officers and the 1952 Revolution. The definitive end of her cinematic career came under Nasser on the eve of the 1956 Suez War. \n \nEgyptians have long told their national story through interpretations of Murad's life, intertwining the individual and Egyptian state and society to better understand Egyptian identity. As Unknown Past recounts, there's no life better than Murad's to reflect the tumultuous changes experienced over the dramatic decades of the mid-twentieth century.\n

Detalii

Brand

Stanford University Press

Categorie

ENSTK

EAN / GTIN

9781503629776

Magazine

1

Disponibilitate

in stock