Cognitive Narratology and Disability in Taha Hussein’s Canonical Literary Works

Abstract

The seminal works of Taha Hussein, the Egyptian writer who was sobriquetically labelled ‘The Dean of Arabic Literature’, include the autobiographical trilogy, The Days, and his novel, The Call of the Curlew. Both present complementary explorations of disability narratives and sensory perception in literary expression. This study examines Taha Hussein’s autobiographical and fictional works through a disability studies framework, analyzing how blindness shapes literary production and metaphorical construction in early 20th-century Arabic literature. As the output of a late-blind writer, Hussein’s work offers a compelling case study of the persistence of visual memory, the integration of synesthetic sensory experiences, and the use of cognitive metaphors across both autobiographical and fictional modes. This study compares Hussein’s narrative techniques to those of his sighted contemporary, Abbas al-Aqqad, the Egyptian writer and literary critic, and examines whether the cognitive and structural patterns in Hussein’s work represent intentional literary strategies or reflections of memory processes shaped by his disability. Through systematic analysis of perception-based, visual, and cognitive metaphors in contrasting genres with disparate narrative imperatives in both works, we challenge prevailing assumptions about ‘blind writing’ and its alleged sensory distinctiveness.