Reading Arab women's autobiographies : Shahrazad tells her story / Nawar Al-Hassan Golley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Golley, Nawar Al-Hassan, 1961-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Autobiography--Women authors.

Autobiography.

Feminists--Arab countries--Biography.

Feminists.

Feminists--Egypt--Biography.

Women--Arab countries--Biography.

Women.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (255 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Austin, Tex. : University of Texas Press, 2003.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Authors of autobiographies are always engaged in creating a "self" to present to their readers. This process of self-creation raises a number of intriguing questions: why and how does anyone choose to present herself or himself in an autobiography? Do women and men represent themselves in different ways and, if so, why? How do differences in culture affect the writing of autobiography in various parts of the world? This book tackles these questions through a close examination of Arab women's autobiographical writings. Nawar Al-Hassan Golley applies a variety of western critical theories, including Marxism, colonial discourse, feminism, and narrative theory, to the autobiographies of Huda Shaarawi, Fadwa Tuqan, Nawal el-Saadawi, and others to demonstrate what these critical methodologies can reveal about Arab women's writing. At the same time, she also interrogates these theories against the chosen texts to see how adequate or appropriate these models are for analyzing texts from other cultures. This two-fold investigation sheds important new light on how the writers or editors of Arab women's autobiographies have written, documented, presented, and organized their texts.

Contents:

Political theory : colonial discourse, feminist theory, and Arab feminism

Why colonial discourse?

Feminism, nationalism, and colonialism in the Arab world

Huda Shaarawi's Harem years : the memoirs of an Egyptian feminist

Narrative theory : autobiography

Autobiography and sexual difference

Arab autobiography : a historical survey

Analysis of texts

Anthologies

Fadwa Tuqan's Mountainous journey, difficult journey

Nawal el-Saadawi

The literary and the political.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 211-223) and index.

ISBN:

0-292-79886-5

OCLC:

568018157