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"An immense, indispensable resource."—CHOICE, Named an Outstanding Academic Title Selection
"As a women's studies librarian, I treasure this guide as a reference tool."—Feminist Collections
An invaluable reference source and critical review of Arab women writers from the last quarter of the nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth century, new in paperback
Arab women’s writing in the modern age began with ‘A’isha al-Taymuriya, Warda al-Yaziji, Zaynab Fawwaz, and other nineteenth-century pioneers in Egypt and the Levant. This unique study—first published in Arabic in 2004—looks at the work of those pioneers and then traces the development of Arab women’s literature through the end of the twentieth century, and also includes a meticulously researched, comprehensive bibliography of writing by Arab women.
In the first section, in nine essays that cover the Arab Middle East from Morocco to Iraq and Syria to Yemen, critics and writers from the Arab world examine the origin and evolution of women’s writing in each country in the region, addressing fiction, poetry, drama, and autobiographical writing.
The second part of the volume contains bibliographical entries for over 1,200 Arab women writers from the last third of the nineteenth century through 1999. Each entry contains a short biography and a bibliography of each author’s published works. This section also includes Arab women’s writing in French and English, as well as a bibliography of works translated into English.
With its broad scope and extensive research, this book is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in Arabic literature, women’s studies, or comparative literature.
Contributors:
Emad Abu Ghazi, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt
Radwa Ashour (1946–2014), Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt
Mohammed Berrada, novelist and critic, Beirut, Lebanon
Hoda Elsadda, Women and Memory Forum, Cairo, Egypt,
Ferial J. Ghazoul, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
Subhi Hadidi, critic, researcher, and translator, Paris, France
Haidar Ibrahim, sociologist and critic, Cairo, Egypt
Yumna al-‘Id, critic, Beirut, Lebanon
Su‘ad al-Mana, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Iman al-Qadi, critic, UAE
Amina Rachid (1938–2021), Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt
Hasna Reda-Mekdashi, publisher, Beirut, Lebanon
Hatem M. al-Sager, critic, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
“Covering the Maghreb to the Gulf, and the late-19th to the late-20th centuries, this work provides a near-comprehensive and critical resource for readers interested in an increasingly significant corpus of literary work. Edited by three women of letters who are prominent both in the Arab world and internationally, this ‘critical reference guide’ combines nine probing essays (by equally distinguished critics) on women's writing from specific national and subregional contexts in the Arab world: Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Sudan, Iraq, Palestine and Jordan, Arab North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf, and Yemen. Each essay provides historical context and literary narrative, discussion of generic innovations and cross-cultural imitations, and readings of the Arab panorama more generally. . . . In addition to the essays, the substantial bibliographies—of works in English, French, and Arabic, both primary and secondary--are an immense, indispensable resource.” —CHOICE
"As a women's studies librarian, I treasure this guide as a reference tool."—Feminist Collections
Radwa Ashour (1946–2014) is a highly acclaimed Egyptian writer and scholar. She is the author of more than fifteen works of fiction, memoir, and criticism and she supervised and edited the Arabic translation of Volume 9 of The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism (2006). She was professor of English and comparative literature at Ain Shams University, Cairo. She received the Constantine Cavafy Prize for Literature and the prestigious Owais Prize for Fiction.
Ferial J. Ghazoul is an Iraqi scholar, critic, and translator. She is professor of English and comparative literature at the American University in Cairo and formerly editor of Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics. She has written extensively on gender issues in modern and medieval literature and is the author of Nocturnal Poetics: The Arabian Nights in Comparative Context (AUC Press, 1996).
Hasna Reda-Mekdashi is a Lebanese publisher, former director of the prominent child literature publishing house Dar al-Fata al-Arabi, and founding member and managing director of Nour: Foundation for Arab Women’s Research and Studies, Cairo. She initiated and co-edited the Nour Quarterly Journal for reviews of Arab women’s books, and initiated and co-directed the First Arab Women’s Book Fair in Cairo in 1995.
List of Contributors
Introduction
Radwa Ashour, Mohammed Berrada, Ferial J. Ghazoul, and Amina Rachid
1. Lebanon
Yumna al-‘Id
2. Syria
Iman al-Qadi and Subhi Hadidi
3. Egypt
Hoda Elsadda
4. Sudan
Haidar Ibrahim
5. Iraq
Ferial J. Ghazoul
6. Palestine and Jordan
Radwa Ashour
7. Arab North Africa
Mohammed Berrada
8. The Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf
Su‘ad al-Mana
9. Yemen
Hatem M. al-Sager
Bibliography of Works in English
Introduced by Ferial J. Ghazoul
Bibliography of Works in French
Introduced by Amina Rachid
Bibliography of Works in Arabic
Sources