Postcolonial feminine writing

All women speak two languages:
the language of men
and the language of silent suffering
Some women speak a third,
the language of queens
They are marvellous
and they are my friends

Mohja Kahf ¹

There is a tendency to assume all non-Western women are either silent sufferers or simply victims of their patriarchal cultures. Indeed, there is a third language that is neither simply ‘the language of men’ nor ‘silent’, but one which becomes ‘the language of queens’ precisely because it does not conform to any patriarchal literary conventions. This book explores contemporary postcolonial women’s novels that resist the colonial, neo-colonial and patriarchal social norms which render non-Western women as silent and submissive figures. Rather, I aim to explore how contemporary postcolonial women writers reclaim a new position of writing, which mirrors and transcends the storytelling of Shahrazad, the most prominent Arabic female literary voice, in terms of themes, structure, narrative form and content.² I employ the image of Shahrazad the storyteller as the ‘mistress’ of literary discourse in this book to challenge and subvert the one-dimensionality of patriarchal narrative discourse.³ I define this new form of narrative as postcolonial feminine writing and employ this concept as a theoretical framework and methodology for this book. As such, this book will demonstrate ←13 | 14→how postcolonial feminine writing provides the potential for women writers to express agency through their novels arguing against the presumed silence of non-Western women. I will analyse Hanan al-Shaykh’s 1001 Nights (2011), and Elif Shafak’s The Gaze (2006) and Honour (2012) in terms of how social and literary discourses such as narrative, the gaze, speech, silence and shame, which limit women’s existences within pre-defined boundaries, are re-imagined insofar as women can ‘get inside of’ them and reclaim their own bodies and voices.⁴

This book argues that postcolonial feminine writing is a narrative form that contemporary postcolonial women writers employ to challenge and change patriarchal structures, that is, both societal norms and the very structures of narrative itself.⁵ I suggest that postcolonial feminine writing as a concept is drawn out of Frantz Fanon’s postcolonial theory in ‘Algeria Unveiled’ and Hélène Cixous’s feminine writing theory, also known as l’écriture feminine, in ‘The Laugh of Medusa’. More specifically, postcolonial feminine writing emerges at the intersections of feminine writing, Fanon’s postcolonialism and the narrative of the One Thousand and One Nights. As I go on to demonstrate, Cixous and Fanon are important figures in considering postcolonialism and feminine writing separately but the intersection of these theories allows me to explore how it is not only possible for women writers to operate within patriarchal narrative discourse, but also how it is possible to undo and re-imagine the very norms ←14 | 15→of the patriarchal discourse from within. Cixous attaches specific importance to writing and voice. As I explain later, she urges women to write, bring their bodies into the literary discourse, and have a voice. While this is a required and valid position, there are other mediums of expression for women that are not recognised by the patriarchal literary discourse.⁶ When we look at the position of non-Western women and their writings, it is clear that they are denied access to writing and voice, not only because they are women, but because they are also of a non-Western race, nation and/or a different class. However, this does not mean they do not possess other forms of languages that allow them to challenge and undermine their restrictive social and literary boundaries. Here, the postcolonial context necessitates and helps us to look beyond the questions around women’s writing and voice. Analysing feminine writing in a postcolonial context particularly requires recognising other mediums of communication such as silence and (un)veiling.⁷ It becomes an alternative discourse to patriarchal and colonial discourses, similar to Shahrazad’s storytelling, which builds on the acquisition of literary discourse with a claim to the area that is ‘reserved [previously] for the great [men]’.⁸ Building on this perception, postcolonial feminine writing allows us to interrogate how non-Western women are denied access to voice as well as different power structures such as honour and the gaze, and thus they seek alternative means of moving beyond the restrictions of these power structures. The logic of postcolonial feminine writing therefore is not confined to the medium of writing, but it is a multi-layered approach that recognises nuanced forms of expressions in contemporary postcolonial women’s writing.