After colonization nominally ended, the conflict between the West and the former colonies has shifted into the cultural sphere. In the process of establishing new genres (drama and novel) and modernizing existing ones (poetry), modernism has been espoused by most anti-neocolonialist Egyptian authors. Postcolonial modernism, a hybrid cultural product that is neither solely derivative of nor completely independent from Western modernism, is characterized by confusingly enmeshed paradoxes. Postcolonial intellectuals opted to borrow cultural products from the very entity they resist. This anomaly has been intensified by their relationship with their identity-bearing tradition, which has to be simultaneously preserved and interrogated. I propose a two-way reading of texts, one which investigates both the indigenization of Western cultural products and the modernization of traditionalist ones. Unlike Western modernism, which has a straightforward, temporal relationship with the tradition it seeks to replace, postcolonial modernism is primarily occupied with identity preservation, solely attainable through a modernist engagement with tradition rather than its replacement. A number of theories of Arab modernism are investigated. The methodology emerging from this investigation is employed in close readings of a number of literary and critical texts illustrating continuity with and divergence from both indigenous tradition and Western modernism. This analysis sheds light on the unique trajectories of development of the genres of poetry, drama, and female-authored narratives in post-independence Egyptian literature.