- Wajdī al-Ahdal (1973-, Yemen) – Arḍ Bilā Samāʾ (2008, English trans. A Land Without Jasmine, 2012). When the young, beautiful university student Samāʾ (Jasmine in the English translation) disappears under suspicious circumstances, the police question her family, neighbours, and acquaintances. Through their testimonies, an image of Samāʾ forms in which she is objectified by male voyeurism and their predatory advances. The novel was also turned into a play (also in P: Police Investigations and Crimes: (Police) Investigations).
- Laylā Baʿlabakkī’s (1936 – 2023, Lebanon) collection of short stories Safīnat Ḥanān ilā al-Qamar (‘Spaceship of Tenderness to the Moon’, 1964) described women’s sexual experiences. The title story depicts a couple with no children: the female narrator is refusing her husband’s desire to have children. The novel led to the writer being prosecuted and to her novel being banned on charges of immorality (reference)
- Ḥussayn al-Maḥrūs (?, Bahrain) – Ḥawwām (‘Doves’, 2008). This novel, which is set in the 1980s, centres the world of ‘pigeon breeders’ in Bahrain. Its hero, pigeon breeder Zakariyyā, to whom the arts of love and passion are unknown, believes that the behaviour of women is similar to that of pigeons and approaches them as such (reference). Therefore, he believes that Miryām, his brother’s wife who he loves, suffers from hysteria. The novel also reflects on the political turmoil of 1980’s Bahrain, among others by Zakariyyā’s arrest on his alleged oppositional political activities (see also 1981 Failed coup attempt Bahrain).
- Aḥlām Mustaghānmī (1953-, Algeria) – Dhākirat al-Jasad (1993, English trans. Memory in the Flesh, 2000) and Fawḍā al-Hawāss (1998, Englis trans. Chaos of the Senses, 2007).
Dhākirat al-Jasad contains the memories of the secret romantic relationship between Khālid and Aḥlām / Ḥayat, which is juxtaposed with questions of what it means to be Arab and Algerian, as the narrator merges the sacred beloved through erotic language and the female body he associates with it, with his home city Constantine, representative of Algeria (reference).
Fawḍā al-Hawāss is a sequel to this first novel, and portrays Ḥayāt, an imaginative woman whose father was prominent in Algeria’s struggle for independence, and whose husband is a military officer who oppresses the government’s opposition (reference). Feeling closeted, Ḥayat writes, and when her live on one evening seems to correspond with her imagined stories when she meets a man in a cinema, they start a passionate affair. The narrator, from an ‘I’ perspective, describes her sexuality and erotic desires, as well as her emotions and sensations (reference).
- Salwā al-Naʿīmī (1950-, Syria) – Burhān al-ʿAsal (2007, English trans. The Proof of the Honey, 2009). When a Syrian scholar working in Paris is invited to contribute to a conference on classical erotic literature in Arabic, she evokes the memories of her own life to exult in her personal liberty, her lovers, and her desires. The narrator’s hobby throughout the novel is reading pre-modern Arabic erotica, which astonishes her because of its integration of the corporal with the religious. When the novel was translated, it was often put in the category of “uncovering” the veiled world of Muslim Arab women, even though it is possibly better placed as relating to the pre-modern Arabic erotic corpus and ẓurafāʾ (literature of entertainment) and mujūn (ribaldry) genre (reference) (also in C: Cultural and Literary Heritage: Classical Arabic Literature: Classic Arabic Poets and Poems).
- ʿAbd al-Salām Ṣalih (?, Jordan) – Akthar Min Waham (‘More than an illusion’, 2017). Samaʾ, the novel’s female protagonist, is a lustful and daring woman who uses men sexually and professionally. She does not have ambitions to marry or start a family, but rather seeks to build up her career through her relationships (reference). She also meets Aḥmad, a revolutionary who dreamt of liberating Palestine but who became disillusioned by the corruption and self-interest prevalent among his fellow revolutionaries. The novel deconstructs and questions patriarchy and its political and authoritarian roots. It entails entire segments in the colloquial Ammani dialect (also in L: Language and Dialects: Jordanian dialect).
- ʿAlawiyyah Ṣubḥ (1955-, Lebanon) – Ismuhu al-Gharām (‘It’s called passion’, 2009). Set in the aftermath of the Civil War in Beirut, the heroine of the novel, Nahlā, asks an author, Alawiya, to write about her love-affair with Hānī (reference). However, when she starts to suffer from Alzheimer and disappears on a trip to Southern Lebanon, Suʿād, her best friend, hands over Nahlā’s notes and urges the author to continue writing. What results is a story about Nahlā’s physical lust and passion for Hānī, her lover, companion, and soulmate who she could not marry because of his Christian religion and the civil war (reference). The novel received critical attention for its graphic sexual language (also in D: Disabilities, Illness, and Disorders: Illnesses: Alzheimer).
- Leïla Slimani (1981-, Morocco) – Dans le Jardin de L’Orge (2014, English trans. Adèle, 2019). This novel portrays the sex-addiction of its protagonist, the journalist Adèle, an upper-class lady living in Paris who has continuous sexual encounters next to her family life with a surgeon and their son. When her husband has an accident and is forced to stay home, however, she is unable to continue her double life and he eventually discovers her secret (reference). The novel won the sixth prize for Moroccan fiction in French awarded by the La Mamounia in Marrakesh in 2015 (also in D: Disabilities, Illness, and Disorders: Addiction: Sex-addiction).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Maru Pabón. 2023. “‘We Kindled the Fire and it Enkindled Us:’ Three Poetic Articles by Leila Baalbaki.” Kohl Journal 9(1) accessed on https://kohljournal.press/we-kindled-fire-and-it-enkindled-us (last accessed 24 May 2023)
- Niḍāl Burqān. 2009. “Tuqaddim Ṣūrah Ukhrā lil-Mujtamʿa al-Baḥrayniyyah – Riwāyyah ‘Ḥawwām’ li-Ḥussayn al-Maḥrūs.” www.addustour.com, 18 September 2009, https://www.addustour.com/articles/475836 (last accessed 5 August 2020)
Tanja Stampfl. 2010. “The (Im)possibility of Telling: Of Algeria and ‘Memory in the Flesh’.” College Literature: Embargoed Literature 37(1): 129-158, p. 131
Maher Jarrar. 2016. “Foreword” in Representations and Visions of Homeland in Modern Arabic Literature, eds. Sebastian Günter and Stephan Milich. Georg Olms Verlag: Hildesheim, Zürich, New York. pp. xvii-xxxiii, p. xxiii
- Peter Carty. 2015. “Chaos of the Senses by Ahlam Mosteghanemi, book review: Art stalks real-life.” www.independent.co.uk, 10 January 2015, https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/chaos-of-the-senses-by-ahlam-mosteghanemi-book-review-art-stalks-reallife-9969200.html (last accessed 11 November 2015)
- Amel Khireddine. 2021. “Writing the Female Body in Mosteghanemi’s Chaos of the Senses: A Counter Narrative Discourse.” Academic Review of social and human studies 13(1): 26-34, p. 30
- Hanadi al- Samman. 2012. “Remapping Arab Narrative and Sexual Desire in Salwā al-Naʿīmī’ ‘Burhām al-ʿasal’ (The Proof of the Honey).” JAL 43: 60-79, p. 66
- Ḥassan ʿAbādī. 2020. “Akthar min Wahm.” www.diwanalarab.com, 30 March 2020, https://www.diwanalarab.com/%D8%A3%D9%83%D8%AB%D8%B1-%D9%85%D9%86-%D9%88%D9%87%D9%85 (last accessed 29 September 2020)
- Anīsah Būʿīsah. 2020. “Riwāyah ‘Ismuhu al-Gharām’ li-Alawiyyah Subḥ: Iḥtifāʾ bil-Nisyān wa al-Jasad al-Unthawī.” Majallah al-Lughah al-ʿArabiyyah wa Ādābiha 8(2): 309-324, p. 314, 316
- Lara Feigel. 2019. “‘Adèle’ by Leïla Slimani review – sex-addiction thriller.” www.theguardian.com, 14 February 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/14/adele-leila-slimani-review (last accessed 19 February 2023)