Writing Sexuality in the Autobiographical Form A Reflection of Mona Prince’s Novel So You May See

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Abstract

This article explores the representation of the female body and sexuality in modern Arab women’s writing in Egypt, focusing on the 1990s generation and the emergence of a new literary trend of explicit writing, or so-called kitābathal-jasad, which exposes bodily subjects using explicit sexual language, prohibited sensual themes, and erotic fantasies as tools of revolt against social and political taboos and as a means of challenging extremist Islamic religious rhetoric and the patriarchal authority. My representative example of this generation and this writing is Egyptian novelist Mona Prince. In her novel, SoYouMaySee(2011), experience connects to nakedness protest movements by using the body as a key vehicle to protest fundamentalist religious powers that oppose women’s liberation. In both contexts of body protest (clothed or unclothed), female sexuality is the tool par excellence to combat religious extremist rhetoric that amplifies hostility towards women.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)151-181
Number of pages31
JournalAnnali di Ca Foscari Serie Orientale
Volume58
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2022

Keywords

  • Censorship
  • Eroticism in Arab literature
  • Female body
  • Female sexuality
  • Mona Prince
  • Nakedness writing
  • Sexual explicitness
  • Taboos
  • Women’s writing

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Cultural Studies
  • Religious studies
  • Sociology and Political Science
  • Linguistics and Language
  • Political Science and International Relations

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