Reading Arab Women's Autobiographies: Shahrazad Tells Her Story

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.

Author: Nawar Al-Hassan Golley
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 12/01/2003
Pages: 236
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.86lbs
Size: 9.24h x 5.90w x 0.74d
ISBN: 9780292705456

Review Citation(s):
Choice 04/01/2004 pg. 1469

About the Author
Nawar Al-Hassan Golley is Assistant Professor of English at the American University of Sharjah in United Arab Emirates.