Echoes of the past: the quest for meaning in Wasini Alaraj’s 2084: the story of the last Arab

This article offers a postcolonial critical reading of Wasini Alaraj’s 2084: The Story of the Last Arab (2016). Despite its early publication in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, the novel has received limited scholarly attention, even though it represents a significant contribution to contemporary Arab speculative fiction. The study examines how Alaraj imagines the Arab future not as an ‘end of history’ in the Hegelian or Fukuyaman sense, but as an Arab end shaped by cultural stagnation, ideological manipulation, and internal political decay. Drawing on close reading and qualitative thematic analysis informed by postcolonial theory, the article explores the novel’s use of allegory, apocalyptic imagination, hybridity, parody, double-voiced discourse, and intertextuality. It highlights how social collapse and its aftermath are portrayed as products of both external domination and internal political failure. Furthermore, the analysis demonstrates that 2084 engages in a sustained, dialogic rewriting of George Orwell’s 1984, transforming its totalitarian logic to address postcolonial and post–Arab Spring anxieties. The article concludes that Alaraj’s novel functions as a critical postcolonial indictment of neocolonial pressures and self-inflicted political failures, offering a cautionary vision that prompts reflection on Arab futurity, cultural agency, and resistance.