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Robert Irwin

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Robert Irwin

British historian, novelist, and writer on Arabic literature (1946–2024)

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Also known as Robert Graham Irwin

Robert Irwin

British historian, novelist, and writer on Arabic literature (1946–2024)

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Ask Genius Site

Not who you're looking for? Others named Robert Irwin: Australian conservationist and wildlife photographer (born 2 · American artist (1928–2023) · Canadian politician (1865-1941)

Robert Graham Irwin was a British scholar and novelist. Notable among his scholarly works is For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and Their Enemies, a critique of Edward Said's concept of Orientalism.

Occupation: historian, novelist, writer, arabist
Citizenship: United Kingdom
Born: August 23, 1946
Died: June 28, 2024
Website: http://www.dedalusbooks.com/our-authors-and-translators-details.php?id=00000064&fr=00000185

Family

Helen Elizabeth Irwinspouse

For Lust of Knowingknown for The Arabian Nightmareknown for The Limits of Visionknown for Memoirs of a Dervishknown for Memoirs of a Dervishknown for Tom's Versionknown for The Runes Have Been Castknown for Satan Wants Meknown for University of St Andrewsemployer SOAS, University of Londoneducated at Epsom Collegeeducated at

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Robert Graham Irwin (23 August 1946 – 28 June 2024) was a British scholar and novelist. Notable among his scholarly works is For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and Their Enemies, a critique of Edward Said's concept of Orientalism.

Contents

Biography

Robert Graham Irwin was born in Guildford on 23 August 1946. He attended Epsom College, read modern history at the University of Oxford, and did graduate research at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) under the supervision of Bernard Lewis. His thesis was on the Mamluk reconquest of the Crusader states, but he failed to complete it. During his studies, he converted to Islam and spent some time in a dervish monastery in Algeria. From 1972 he was a lecturer in medieval history at the University of St. Andrews. He gave up academic life in 1977 in order to write fiction, while continuing to lecture part-time at Oxford, Cambridge and SOAS. Irwin was a research associate at SOAS, and the Middle East editor of The Times Literary Supplement. He has published a history of Orientalism and was an acknowledged expert on The Arabian Nights.

Many of Irwin's novels focus on Arabic themes. This includes his first, the acclaimed dark fantasy novel

Also known as Robert Graham Irwin

August 23, 1946

Died

June 28, 2024

Website

http://www.dedalusbooks.com/our-authors-and-translators-details.php?id=00000064&fr=00000185

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Helen Elizabeth Irwin

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For Lust of Knowing The Arabian Nightmare The Limits of Vision Memoirs of a Dervish Memoirs of a Dervish Tom's Version The Runes Have Been Cast Satan Wants Me University of St Andrews SOAS, University of London

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Robert Graham Irwin was a British scholar and novelist. Notable among his scholarly works is For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and Their Enemies, a critique of Edward Said's concept of Orientalism.

Occupation: historian, novelist, writer, arabist
Citizenship: United Kingdom
Born: August 23, 1946
Died: June 28, 2024
Website: http://www.dedalusbooks.com/our-authors-and-translators-details.php?id=00000064&fr=00000185

Family

Helen Elizabeth Irwinspouse

For Lust of Knowingknown for The Arabian Nightmareknown for The Limits of Visionknown for Memoirs of a Dervishknown for Memoirs of a Dervishknown for Tom's Versionknown for The Runes Have Been Castknown for Satan Wants Meknown for University of St Andrewsemployer SOAS, University of Londoneducated at Epsom Collegeeducated at

Not who you're looking for? Others named Robert Irwin: Australian conservationist and wildlife photographer (born 2 · American artist (1928–2023) · Canadian politician (1865-1941)

Article

Robert Graham Irwin (23 August 1946 – 28 June 2024) was a British scholar and novelist. Notable among his scholarly works is For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and Their Enemies, a critique of Edward Said's concept of Orientalism.

Contents

Biography

Robert Graham Irwin was born in Guildford on 23 August 1946. He attended Epsom College, read modern history at the University of Oxford, and did graduate research at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) under the supervision of Bernard Lewis. His thesis was on the Mamluk reconquest of the Crusader states, but he failed to complete it. During his studies, he converted to Islam and spent some time in a dervish monastery in Algeria. From 1972 he was a lecturer in medieval history at the University of St. Andrews. He gave up academic life in 1977 in order to write fiction, while continuing to lecture part-time at Oxford, Cambridge and SOAS. Irwin was a research associate at SOAS, and the Middle East editor of The Times Literary Supplement. He has published a history of Orientalism and was an acknowledged expert on The Arabian Nights.

Many of Irwin's novels focus on Arabic themes. This includes his first, the acclaimed dark fantasy novel

The Arabian Nightmare, which was inspired by Jan Potocki's The Manuscript Found in Saragossa. Later novels would focus on diverse subjects, such as British Surrealism (Exquisite Corpse) and Satanism in Swinging London (Satan Wants Me). A character from Satan Wants Me, the Satanist Charlie Felton, has a cameo in the 1969 episode of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic. Alan Moore, the comic's creator, has described Irwin as a "fantastic writer".

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2001.

Irwin died in London on 28 June 2024, at the age of 77.

Orientalism

In 2006, Irwin published For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and their Enemies, his critique of Edward Said's Orientalism (1978). Among various points, he maintains that Said focused his attention on the British and French in his critique of Orientalism, while it was German scholars who made the original contributions. He notes that Said linked the academic Orientalism in those countries with imperialist designs on the Middle East, yet, by the 19th and the early 20th centuries, it was more proper to regard Russia as an empire having imperialist designs on the Caucasus region and Central Asia. Irwin maintains that the issue of Russia's actual imperialist designs is avoided by Said. Another of Irwin's key points is that oriental scholarship, or "Orientalism", "owes more to Muslim scholarship than most Muslims realise."

Maya Jasanoff in the London Review of Books argued: "...Irwin's factual corrections, however salutary, do not so much knock down the theoretical claims of Orientalism as chip away at single bricks. They also do nothing to discount the fertility of Orientalism for other academics. The most thought-provoking works it has inspired have not blindly accepted Said's propositions, but have expanded and modified them."

Published works

Fiction

The Arabian Nightmare (Dedalus 1983)

The Limits of Vision (Dedalus 1986)

The Mysteries of Algiers (Dedalus 1988)

Exquisite Corpse (Dedalus 1995)

Prayer-Cushions of the Flesh (Dedalus 1997)

Satan Wants Me (Dedalus 1999)

Wonders Will Never Cease (Dedalus 2016)

My Life is like a Fairy Tale (Dedalus 2019)

The Runes Have Been Cast (Dedalus 2021)

Tom's Version (Dedalus 2023)

Non-fiction

The Middle East in the Middle Ages: the Early Mamluk Sultanate 1250–1382 (Croom Helm 1986)

The Arabian Nights: A Companion (Allen Lane 1994)

Islamic Art (Laurence King 1997)

Night and Horses and the Desert: the Penguin Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature (Allen Lane 1999)

The Alhambra (Profile Books, 2004).

For Lust of Knowing: the Orientalists and their Enemies (Allen Lane, 2006). (US edition: Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism and Its Discontents (Overlook Press, 2006)

Camel (Reaktion Books 2010)

Mamluks and Crusaders (Ashgate Variorum 2010)

Visions of the Jinn; Illustrators of the Arabian Nights (The Arcadian Library 2010)

Memoirs of a Dervish: Sufis, Mystics and the Sixties (Profile Books, 2011)

Ibn Khaldun: An intellectual Biography. Princeton University Press. 2018. ISBN 9780691174662.

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Related journals

Family

Helen Elizabeth Irwin

Connected

For Lust of Knowing The Arabian Nightmare The Limits of Vision Memoirs of a Dervish Memoirs of a Dervish Tom's Version The Runes Have Been Cast Satan Wants Me University of St Andrews SOAS, University of London