ABSTRACT
Despite much argument about whether the 68 phenomenon might be categorized into trends, how this might be done and whether the literature had any value in any case, there was nevertheless general agreement on the fact that something new had emerged, hence the term ‘the new literature’ (al-adab al-jadïd) abounded in the cultural press of the late 1960s. Yet it was not just a new literary phenomenon that Gallery 68 helped to entrench, but a whole new literary dynamic propelled by an autonomous sub-field of non-periodic avant-garde journals. Understanding the evolution of the Egyptian literary field of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s necessitates, even more than before, an appreciation of the pivotal role of the struggle between avant-gardists and those holding fast to the status quo. The root of the struggle was, as ever, the definition of legitimacy in the literary field but the avant-garde weapon, the journal, had now blossomed into an ever regenerating stream as the Gallery 68 paradigm took hold.
