Men, Women, and God(s): Nawal El Saadawi and Arab Feminist Poetics.

AuthorAllen, Roger

By FEDWA MALTI-DOUGLAS. Berkeley and Los Angeles: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, 1995. Pp. xiii + 273.

This is a work of powerful advocacy; as such, it will delight and encourage some while aggravating others. Fedwa Malti-Douglas, already renowned for a series of studies devoted to Arabic texts of considerable variety in both time and context, here knowingly enters the fray in one of the most fractious arenas of debate in the contemporary study of the Arab and Muslim world: the status of Arab women as seen from within and without, the modes of evaluation of narratives devoted to that topic, and most especially the person and public persona of Nawal al-Sa dawi (Nawal El Saadawi), by far the most prominent and controversial among Egyptian feminist writers.

Malti-Douglas begins her introduction to this work by noting that "[n]o Arab woman inspires as much emotion as Nawal El Saadawi. No woman in the Middle East has been the subject of more polemic" (p. 1) - two statements that are certainly accurate and which, at the same time, set a context within which the author can embark on a detailed and well documented exploration of the value of al-Sa dawi's oeuvre bolstered by a series of close readings of a number of narrative texts. This use of the word "text" is intended as a reflection of Malti-Douglas' determination to view all the narratives that she treats within the same interpretive framework. For while some critics (Sabry Hafez, for example) have used the categories of "novel" or "fiction" as modes of analysis - indeed of severe criticism - in their responses to the works of al-Sa dawi that Malti-Douglas analyzes, she chooses to follow the example of many contemporary critics in examining the discourse of each text in and of itself, whatever its outward form appears to be (autobiography, for example, or travelogue) and as part of the ongoing compositional agenda of its author; issues associated with generic purposes are considered separately.

The organizational model for the chapters is not precisely chronological, but still retains the clear aim of following, indeed focusing on, the development of al-Sa dawi's ideas. The book begins by contextualizing the controversies in which al-Sa dawi has involved herself (or has found herself involved): her life story, her medical training, the impact of her time in prison (during the presidency of Anwar al-Sadat), her advocacy of women's solidarity and its consequences, the changing role of religion within her native...

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