- Karīmah Aḥdād (1993, Morocco) – Banāt al-Ṣabbār (‘Cactus girls’, 2018). This novel centers the female members of a single family and describes their experiences in the family after the death of their father while living in the changing conservative society of al-Hoceima in Morocco (reference). For example, the novel describes how the characters try to resist the unequal inheritance laws.
- Djamila Debèche (1926 – 2010, Algeria) – Aziza (‘Aziza’, 1955). This novel portrays French-educated Aziza, who is split between her tendency towards a secular life, and her traditional, religious marriage to Ali, a lawyer with Arab nationalist political ambitions who is ashamed to be seen with her and leaves her in the isolated village of Beni-Aḥmad. Eventually, her marriage pushes her into depression, and upon returning to Algiers after Ali casts her away, she is faced with rejection from her friends who have turned against her because of her traditional Muslim marriage (reference).
- Āmnah al-Faḍl (?, Sudan) – Baʿaḍ Allathi Dār Baynana (‘Some of what happened between us’, 2019). The heroine of this novel, the Sudani activist Basmah, embarks on a romance with a psychologist. The novel juxtaposes the modern and traditional (reference).
- Ṣāliḥah Ghābish (?, UAE) – Rāʾiḥah al-Zanjabīl (‘The smell of ginger’, 2008). This novel describes life in the UAE at a time of social change through the story of one family. Set in the city if Sharjah in the UAE, heroine of this novel, the economist ʿĀliyyaʾ, defies the rules of her traditional household by going out on the street.
- Ḥussayn al-Maḥrūs (?, Bahrain) – Maryam (‘Miriam’, 2013). This biography of women whose names have been lost centers on the lives of the ‘Maryams’. The novel is set in the Manama neighborhood of al-Naʿīm and covers a timespan from the 1960s to 1980s, when women were known for their manual labor, such as sewing, next to their identities as mothers, sisters, and wives. Through their narratives, the novel reflects on the social and political changes in Bahrain (also in C: Cities: Bahrain: Manama).
- Ghādah al-Sammān’s (1942-, Syria) first collection of short stories titled ʿAynāk Qadrī (‘Your eyes are my fate’, 1962) includes sixteen stories of which fourteen deal with the problems women face when relating to men in a traditional and patriarchal societies. The title story, for example, centers a working woman who suffers from loneliness and alienation in her traditional society and family, as she is constantly confronted with the fact that her father wanted her to be a boy (reference).
- Emna Belhaj Yahia (1945-, Tunisia) – Jeux de rubans (‘Game of ribbons’, 2011). This novel centres the middle-aged Frida, who divides her time between her elderly mother, who she takes care of, and her adult son Tofayl. While she herself lives a life free from the traditional constrains placed on women, she is struck by the growing number of young women around her who start to wear headscarves in Tunisia after the Arab Spring (reference).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Sanāʾ al-ʿĀjī al-Ḥanafī. 2019. “Karīmah Aḥdād: ‘Banāt al-Ṣubbār’ Muḥākimah lil-ʿAqlīyah al-Thukūriyyah.” www.marayana.com, 12 February 2019 https://marayana.com/laune/2019/02/12/5504/ (last accessed 7 July 2023)
- Evelyne Accad.1995. “Arab Women’s Literary Inscriptions.” College Literature 22(1): 172-180, p. 174
- Sawwad Hussain. 2020. “Aperture: Sudanese Female Novelists Coming into Focus.” Words without Borders Special Issue, December 2020. https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/issue/december-2020-sudanese-women-writers (last accessed 5 March 2021)
- Rusūl Balāwī, Muḥammad Jawwād Būrʿābud, Riḍā Ānsitih. 2019. “Ṭubūghrāfiyyā al-Sard al-ʿArabī wa al-Fārisī al-Qasīr: ‘Aynāk Qadrī’ li-Ghādah al-Sammān wa ‘al-Yawm al-Awwal’ li-Ghulī Tarqqī Namūthijan.” Majallah al-Bāḥith 11(2): 79-94, p. 83
- Cécile Oumhani. 2017. “We Take the Present in Our Own Hands: Writing by Tunisian Women.” Worlds without Borders Online Magazine for International Literature, December 2017 https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/december-2017-writing-tunisian-women-introduction-cecile-oumhani (last accessed 21 February 2021)