A Critical Analysis of Ala-el-Asvani's The Building of Yaqubian Based on Lukac's Theory of Sociological Realism

Sociology of Literature, as a subcategory of sociology of art, analyzes the relation between society and literature. It also analyzes the social essence of literary works. This discipline has attracted the attention of sociologists and literary critics in recent centuries and has persuaded them to theorize on it. George Lukacs, the Hungarian critic, is among the critics who have played a major role in the development of this discipline through presenting a critical theory for criticizing novels. His theory is based on the criticism of both form and content and includes particular criteria the most important of which are realism, typical characterization, cause and effect relations as well as social content. In the present study, we have criticized one of the novels of Ala-el-Asvani (Egyptian contemporary writer) named The Building of Yaqubian based on the realism criterion. The superiority of realism, critical realism, and popularity are the three major features of Georg Lukacs’ realism, each of which includes a fixed framework consistent with his views. The obtained results show that Asvani has disclosed the current realities honestly and bravely. He has further critically revealed the social contradictions and portrayed the problems of his contemporary people.