Anxiety of Erasure: Trauma, Authorship, and the Diaspora in Arab Women's Writings (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780815636625)

Far from offering another study that bemoans Arab women's repression and veiling, Anxiety of Erasure looks at Arab women writers living in the diaspora who have translated their experiences into a productive and creative force. In this book, Al-Samman articulates the therapeutic effects of revisiting forgotten histories and of activating two cultural tropes: that of the maw'udah (buried female infant) and that of Shahrazad in the process of revolutionary change. She asks what it means to develop a national, gendered consciousness from diasporic locals while staying committed to the homeland.

Al-Samman presents close readings of the fiction of six prominent authors whose works span over half a century and define the current status of Arab diaspora studies--Ghada al-Samman, Hanan al-Shaykh, Hamida al-Na'na', Hoda Barakat, Samar Yazbek, and Salwa al-Neimi. Exploring the journeys in time and space undertaken by these women, Anxiety of Erasure shines a light on the ways in which writers remain participants in their homelands' intellectual lives, asserting both the traumatic and the triumphant aspects of diaspora. The result is a nuanced Arab women's poetic that celebrates rootlessness and rootedness, autonomy and belonging.

Author: Hanadi Al-Samman
ISBN-10: 0815636628
ISBN-13: 9780815636625
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Language: English
Published: 09/18/2019
Pages: 312
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 8.95h x 5.40w x 0.68d