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The necessary nationalism

This article deals with the role of fictional narratives, especially the modern novel, in the formation of national identities. Naguib Mafouz’s Cairo trilogy is referred to as an example of how literature may both serve as the mirror image of national identities and as an agency in their formation. The sense of community attachment to a modern state is ”thinner” than to a family or traditional village and/or tribe, though no less vital. Drawing on Norbert Elias’s concept of ”survival unit,” Benedict Anderson’s ”imagined communities” and recent studies in the field of comparative literature by Gregory Jusdanis and Azade Seyhan, this article argues for the necessity of the nation – in spite of its unfavourable chauvinistic reputation. This contention is discussed in relation to recent literary developments in Turkey and recent debates on nationhood in a Swedish context.