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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | New Politics, Old Identities: Arab Women in (Their) English Words |
Author: | Abou El Naga, Shereen |
Year: | 2002 |
Periodical: | Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity |
Issue: | 54 |
Pages: | 60-73 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Tunisia Sudan |
Subjects: | culture contact Western culture African culture Arabs literature |
About persons: | Leila Abulela Sabiha Khemir |
External link: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10130950.2002.9676178 |
Abstract: | Women experience the effects of the binaries of West versus Arab most harshly, especially if we consider that they are crushed between two extremities. Between two belligerent epistemologies, Arab women have tried to find their own way, in their own words, and are taking the initiative of finding a 'third way', which takes the dismantling of the binaries as its point of departure. This paper examines two cultural literary narratives written in English by Arab women: 'The translator' (1999), by Leila Abulela, who grew up in Sudan and moved to London, and 'Waiting in the future for the past to come' (1993) by Sabiha Khemir, a Tunisian who completed a PhD at London University. These are narratives that take place in the contact zone between two cultures. In their own words, these women express their own epistemological views. Their discourse emanates from a space definitely governed by their local cultural determinations. Yet, it is a discourse different from the patriarchal discourse that has patronized them, and the Western discourse that has stereotyped them. Bibliogr., notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |