Arab, Muslim, Woman: Voice and Vision in Postcolonial Literature and Film

202 Pages·2008·1.57 MB·English

by  Lindsey Moore

Arab, Muslim, Woman
Given a long history of representation by others, what themes and tech-
niques do Arab Muslim women writers, filmmakers, and visual artists fore-
ground in their presentation of postcolonial experience?
Lindsey Moore demonstrates ways in which women appropriate textual
and visual modes of representation, often in cross-fertilizing ways, in
challenges to Orientalist/colonialist, nationalist, Islamist and ‘multicultural’
paradigms. She provides an accessible but theoretically-informed analysis,
foregrounding tropes of vision, visibility and voice; post-nationalist melan-
cholia and mother/daughter narratives; transformations of ‘homes and
harems’; and border crossings in time, space, language and media. In doing
so, Moore moves beyond notions of speaking or looking ‘back’ to
encompass a diverse feminist poetics and politics and to emphasize ethical
forms of representation and reception.
Arab, Muslim, Woman is distinctive in terms of the eclectic body of work
that it brings together. Discussing Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon,
Morocco, the Palestinian territories and Tunisia, as well as postcolonial
Europe, Moore argues for better integration of Arab Muslim contexts in the
postcolonial canon. In a book for readers interested in women’s studies,
history, literature and visual media, we encounter work by Assia Djebar,
Mona Hatoum, Fatima Mernissi, Ahlam Mosteghanemi, Nawal el Saadawi,
Leïla Sebbar, Zineb Sedira, Ahdaf Soueif, Moufida Tlatli, Fadwa Tuqan and
many other women.
Lindsey Moore is Lecturer in English at Lancaster University, where she
teaches postcolonial literatures, women’s writing, and literary theory. She
has published articles on representations of Arab and Muslim women and
on Arab women’s writing.
Transformations: Thinking Through Feminism
Edited by:
Maureen McNeil
Institute of Women’s Studies, Lancaster University
Lynne Pearce
Department of English, Lancaster University
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Arab, Muslim, Woman: Voice and Vision in Postcolonial Literature
and Film
Lindsey Moore

Arab, Muslim, Woman
Voice and vision in postcolonial
literature and film
Lindsey Moore
First published 2008 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
© 2008 Lindsey Moore
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Moore, Lindsey.
Arab, Muslim, woman : voice and vision in postcolonial literature and
film / Lindsey Moore.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Women, Arab. 2. Muslim women 3. Feminism–Arab countries.
4. Postcolonialism–Arab countries. 5. Arab countries–Colonization.
I. Title.
HQ1784.M66 2008
306.4′2082095609045–dc22
2007044935
ISBN 0-203-92772-9 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 0-415-40416-9 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0-203-92772-9 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-40416-7 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-92772-4 (ebk)
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Note on transliteration x
List of plates xi
Introduction 1
Contexts of production and reception 3
Voice and vision 12
Preliminary case study: Nawal el Saadawi 17
Chapter outline 23
1 Historical contexts: ‘layer after layer’ 25
Colonialism and orientalism 25
The Colonial Harem: reframed by Malek Alloula 33
Fanon’s ‘Algeria Unveiled’ and Frantz Gillo Pontecorvo’s
The Battle of Algiers 36
Early feminism: Huda Shaarawi’s Harem Years 41
Postcolonial (neo-)patriarchies and feminisms 44
2 Visibility, vision, and voice: Algerian women in question (again) 48
Fettouma Touati, Desperate Spring 49
Malika Mokeddem, The Forbidden Woman 51
Assia Djebar: from Children of the New World to A Sister to
Scheherazade 55
‘I am not an odalisque’: Leïla Sebbar’s Sherazade 71
Delacroix revisited (once more): Houria Niati’s No to
Torture 75
viii Contents
3 Melancholia in the Maghrib: mother–daughter plots 77
Leïla Abouzeid, ‘Year of the Elephant’ 79
Ahlam Mosteghanemi, Memory in the Flesh 81
Moufida Tlatli, The Silences of the Palace and The Season
of Men 85
A twist in the tale: Raja Amari, Red Satin 96
Beyond allegory? 97
4 Heterotopias: reimagining home 100
Nina Bouraoui, Forbidden Vision 102
Fadia Faqir, Pillars of Salt 105
Fadwa Tuqan, Mountainous Journey 107
Raymonda Tawil, My Home, My Prison 112
Fatima Mernissi, The Harem Within 116
Farida Ben Lyazid, A Door to the Sky 124
5 Border crossings, translations 128
Zineb Sedira: on witnessing, translatability, and vanishing
points 130
Mona Hatoum, Measures of Distance 140
Ahdaf Soueif, The Map of Love 146
Endnotes 159
Works cited 166
Filmography 181
Index 182
Acknowledgements
This book was made possible by research leave granted by the Arts and
Humanities Research Council and a sabbatical by the Department of English
and Creative Writing at Lancaster University. Particular acknowledgement
should be made of the women writers and filmmakers who have inspired my
work and of those who have permitted me to share their wonderful images:
Jananne al Ani, Ghada Amer, Samta Benyahia, Mona Hatoum, Houria
Niati, Zineb Sedira, and Ruth Ward. I would like to thank people who
helped me access resources at Bridgeman Art Library, the British Film Insti-
tute, the Fowler Museum (UCLA), Gagosian Gallery, the Institute of Inter-
national Visual Arts, Tate Archives, Women Make Movies, and White Cube.
A book inevitably requires many different kinds of inspiration and sup-
port. Among those who have contributed to the lengthy emergence of this
one are Denise DeCaires-Narain, Alison Donnell, Jacqueline Kaye, and
Laura Marcus, in the early stages, and Arthur Bradley, Kamilla Elliott, Mike
Greaney, Liz Oakley-Brown, Catherine Silverstone, and Catherine Spooner,
who helped immensely with the editing and in keeping me sane towards the
end. Particular thanks go to Arthur Bradley, Tess Cosslett, Hilary Hinds,
Nayanika Mookherjee, Lynne Pearce, and Jackie Stacey for comments on
substantial parts of the manuscript. My sincere thanks go also to Abdellah
Baïda and Heba Youssef for invaluable help with transliteration and transla-
tion. I am indebted to Claudia Esposito and Anastasia Valassopoulos for
providing incisive commentary on the whole manuscript. It goes without
saying that any remaining errors are my own.
Part of Chapter 1 appears as ‘The Veil of Nationalism: Fanon’s “Algeria
Unveiled” and Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers’ in Kunapipi: Journal of
Post-Colonial Writing 25: 2 (2003): 56–73. Abridged sections of Chapters
1, 2 and 5 have been published as ‘“Through a Veil Darkly”: Reading
Representations of Algerian Women’, in Contested Imaginaries: Reading
Muslim Women and Muslim Women Reading Back, Special Issue of Inter-
cultural Education 18:4 (2007): 335–51. A section of Chapter 6 appears as
‘“Some Internalisation of the Other has Already Begun”: Borderwork/
Translation in Writing by Assia Djebar and Ahdaf Soueif’ in Comparative
Literatures and Translation / Littératures comparées et traduction, Confer-
ence Proceedings (Rabat: MJB, 2006).