Search results for ""author fedwa malti-douglas""

Men, Women, and God(s) is a pioneering study of the Arab world's leading feminist and most controversial woman writer, Nawal El Saadawi. Author of plays, memoirs, and such novels as Woman at Point Zero and The Innocence of the Devil, El Saadawi has become well known in the West as well as in the Arab community for her unforgettable female heroes and explosive narratives, which boldly address sexual violence, female circumcision, theology, and other politically charged themes. Her outspoken feminism and critique of patriarchy have also earned her the wrath of repressive forces in the Middle East. Imprisoned in her native Egypt under Sadat, El Saadawi is now among those on the death lists of Islamic religious conservatives. In Men, Women, and God(s) Fedwa Malti-Douglas makes the work of this important but little-understood writer truly accessible. Contending that El Saadawi's texts cannot be read in isolation from their Islamic and Arabic heritage, Malti-Douglas draws upon a deep knowledge of classical and modern Arabic textual traditions—and on extensive conversations with Nawal El Saadawi—to place the writer within her cultural and historical context. With this impassioned and radical exegesis of El Saadawi's prolific output, Malti-Douglas has written a crucial study of one of the most controversial and influential writers of our time. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1995.

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Woman's voice and body are closely entwined in the Arabo-Islamic tradition, argues Fedwa Malti-Douglas in this pioneering book. Spanning the ninth through twentieth centuries and covering a wide range of texts—from courtly anectdote to mystical and philosophical treatises, from works of geography to autobiography—this study reveals how woman's access to literary speech has remained mediated through her body.Malti-Douglas first analyzes classical texts (both well-known works like The Thousand and One Nights and others still ignored in the West) in which the female voice, often associated with wit or trickery of a sexual nature, is subordinated to the male scriptor. Showing how early Arabo-Islamic discourse continues to influence contemporary Arabic writing, she maintains that today feminist writers of novels, short stories, and autobiography must work through this tradition, even if they subvert or reject it in the end. Whereas woman in the classical period speaks through the body, woman in the modern period often turns corporeality into a literary weapon to achieve power over discourse.Fedwa Malti-Douglas is Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature at the University of Texas, Austin. Her books include Structures of Avarice: The Bukhala' in Medieval Arabic Literature (Leiden) and Blindness and Autobiography: Al-Ayyam of Taha Husayn (Princeton).Originally published in 1991.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

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The three-volume life-story of the Egyptian intellectual Tahah Husayn (1889-1973) is a landmark in modern autobiography, in Arabic letters, and in the literature of blindness. This justly celebrated text, however, has never been subjected to the sustained literary analysis here presented by Fedwa Malti-Douglas. Born into a modest family and blinded in childhood, Husayn nevertheless conquered first his own and then a European educational system to become one of his country's leading modernizers. Professor Malti-Douglas shows that the personal, social, and literary reality of the hero's blindness gives the autobiography its unity and force. Blindness and Autobiography is not only a rich explication of al-Ayyam but a pioneering study of the interaction between a severe physical handicap and the autobiographical process. It adds a new perspective to the contemporary discussion of the cultural uses of the body. The first part of the book explores blindness and society, from the evolving conflict between personal and social conceptions of the handicap to the way blindness redefines the more familiar issues of traditional versus modern, East versus West. The second section examines the relationship of blindness to the autobiography's ecriture, rhetoric, and narration. Originally published in 1988. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

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Hamida and Hamido are twins, grown from a single embryo inside one womb. Violently parted, they search the city in the darkening circles of a dream, only to find, lose and find each other, each time as if it were the first. Their journey - terrifying and exact - leads to an unbroken cycle of corruption and brutality,

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