The Middle Eastern Press as a Forum for Literature

Research on Middle Eastern press is of great importance for comparative historical studies. Many editors of newspapers and magazines were not only journalists, but also writers, poets, thinkers and politicians. These intellectual leaders used non-official journals as a means of accelerating public discourse on reforms in the Ottoman Empire and later on in its successor states. Introducing new genres of literature to the Middle East they serialized novels, short stories and travelogues, experimented with new kinds of poetry and let satire blossom. The 15 contributors approach this thematics from different perspectives: Some concentrate on certain newspapers, literary journals or satirical magazines, others centre on the biographies of editors or writers. Although the main focus of this book is on the Ottoman and Persian press until 1914, some articles extend this scope to include Post-Ottoman Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Cyprus.