SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This thesis examines the development of female subjectivities as presented in the short stories of women writers who started writing In Arabic in the second half of the 20th century in Egypt and the Levant (represented by Lebanon, Syria and Palestine), Iraq and the Gulf (represented by United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia) and North Africa (represented by Morocco and Tunisia). My theoretical approach draws on the theories of subjectivity elaborated by Michel Foucault, Simone de Beauvoir and other critical re-elaborations of Foucauldian concepts by several feminist theorists. This thesis aims at filling some of the lacunae in the available studies of Arab women literary achievements, which tend to be scarce, geographically limited, and concentrated on few famous names, dealing mostly with the novel and history of literature. Therefore the geographical area covered is extensive, showing the cultural, social and political variety of Arab countries against its mass media image of a monolithic whole. Whenever possible the authors have been selected among the younger, little known or translated women writers. The focus on the short story rather than the novel provides an insight into a dynamic area of Arab women's literary production which is widely understudied. Selecting subjectivity enables the study to move from the phase of history of literature to a deeper critical appreciation of women's literary achievements. Moreover subjectivity allows one to meet and hear the voices of female subjects with differences, opinions, sexualities, and so forth, and hence overcomes the many stereotypes diffused by mass media about 'Muslim women', transformed into a homogeneous, ahistorical and universalised category.