In this thoroughly researched and thought-provoking first-of-its-kind study, Boston University Arabist Margaret Litvin sets out to address an important lacuna in global Shakespeare studies. To this very date, she tells us in her introduction, this field of scholarly interest still lacks any method or theory that explains in a convincing way how Shakespearean texts are appropriated in non-anglophone contexts – who tends to deploy them, in what circumstances, for what ends – and whether certain texts, like Hamlet, lend themselves to specific agendas more than others (p. 4).

Litvin stresses the inadequacy of the ‘literary influence paradigm’ with its ‘basic’ binary relationship between original text and rewritings (p. 5). More radically, perhaps, Litvin dismisses as equally flawed the opposite model of post-colonial rewriting, which celebrates the often transgressive intent of the agent rewriter. If anything, she insists, Hamlet's reception history in this part of the world ‘contravenes’ post-colonial compartmentalization with the latter's ‘vexed and self producing’ dominant/subversive, empire/colony, centre/periphery and West/East battlefields (p. 7). For Litvin, Shakespeare has always been seen by his Arab hosts as ‘global’, never ‘British’. More specifically, his prince was typically regarded as a child of the world, any world, never really ‘Danish’.

But what is it in Hamlet's character and dilemma(s) that resonates so powerfully with the ‘Arab psyche’? Litvin argues that it is Hamlet's pursuit of his own authentic voice against the dictates of phoney contemporaries, his admirable pursuit of his own autonomy and desire to take ownership of his destiny, that have so much allowed him to become an object of identification for various modern Arab cultural and political voices. Enter the figure that Litvin describes as the Arab Hero Hamlet. For good or ill, this reconfiguration of Hamlet was to become the epitome of the revolutionary ideals and cultural energies that characterized the heady years following the Egyptian Revolution of 1952.

As the title indicates, Litvin focuses on Egypt and its modern theatrical tradition, particularly inasmuch as it has continued to interact over the years with the ‘legacy’ of Egyptian charismatic president Gamal Abdel Nasser (1956–70). Nasser's geopolitical and cultural priorities not only gave birth to a range of chameleonic Arab Hamlets, but also conditioned how intellectuals received them (p. 10). With her eyes on the contemporary Arab dramatic scene, Litvin thus devotes the first three chapters of the book to depicting and explicating the kaleidoscope of Hamlets that became available to Egyptian theatre professionals and audiences up until the mid-1960s. Chapter 4, ‘Hamletizing the Arab Muslim Hero, 1964–67’, traces the career of the phenomenon against the run-up to the 1967 defeat at the hands of Israel and, ultimately, Nasser's death in 1970. In ‘Times out of Joint, 1967–74’ we see a much darker post-mortem, marked, among other things, by a difficult inheritance, a problematic mourning, and an insatiable hunger for the Hamlet that Nasser and his policies had helped define. In ‘Six Plays in Search of a Protagonist, 1976–2002’ Litvin moves on to examine non-Egyptian Hamlets from Arab countries as diverse as Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Kuwait. Here, Hamlet becomes a symbol of the disillusioned and much-betrayed revolutionary within a rotten totalitarian state. The book's journey continues well into the present moment. By the time we reach the Epilogue, ‘Hamlets without Hamlet’, we have landed in an Arab Spring moment that is yet to be understood for what it means and entails.

An exceptional work that crosses many disciplinary boundaries, Margaret Litvin's Hamlet's Arab Journey not only provides a new approach to the study of international Shakespeare appropriation, but also promises an engaging and narrative-rich point of access to the operations of Arab cultural and political identities. More importantly, Arab readers and scholars of Arab culture alike would find much to ponder in points of similarity underneath the seemingly conflicting stances of liberals, nationalists and Islamists. These are all identifiable in Litvin's account with the relationship between a ghostly father and a hesitating son. Time has only confirmed this invisible connection, thanks to the confusion of the current ‘revolutionary’ landscape, where Arab history seems so ‘fluid’ and scenes of the past inhibit an Arab identity that is yet in the (re)making.