The Politics of Location and Sexuality in Leila Ahmed’s and Nawal El Saadawi’s Life Narratives

• Authors: Leila Aouadi
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This article explores Leila Ahmed’s A Border Passage, and Nawal El Saadawi’s Memoirs from the Women’s Prison, A Daughter of Isis, and Walking Through Fire. It contrasts their works and argues that location and genderawareness play an important role in the writing of autobiographies. The focus is on showing how El Saadawi’s positioning as a feminist activist in Egypt and Ahmed’s location in the USA determine the texts’ themes and shape the construction of the autobiographical “I.”

Keywords

EN

Women’s life narratives; Middle East; female circumcision; gender; class; location; Islam

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Łódzki. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Journal: International Studies. Interdisciplinary Political and Cultural Journal
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 16
• Pages: 35-50

Dates

published

2014-09-01

online

2014-09-25

Contributors

author

Leila Aouadi

• University of Tunis, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, English Department, 94 Boulevard du 9 Avril 1938, Tunis 1007, Tunisia

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/ipcj-2014-0003