ABSTRACT
This chapter will examine the representation of the Egyptian family in the avantgarde literary works of the 1990s in contrast to that which permeated earlier literary texts since the mid twentieth century. I will argue that many literary works of the 1990s announce the death of the family as a literary icon that represents the Egyptian national imaginary. These avant-garde literary representations of the family seem to question and contest an official national imaginary that makes the family the central national icon. Whereas dominant cultural representations continue to reinforce traditional values of the family and moralize its reality, even when critical of the economic and social conditions that surround it, the avant-garde literary imaginary of the 1990s is accused of “immorality”, if not nihilism, in its attempts to unsettle the very same icon.1
