Male Domination, Female Revolt ─ Race, Class, and Gender in Kuwaiti Women's Fiction

Tijani (Arabic, American U. of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates) draws on Marxist-feminist literary theory in order to analyze selected fictional texts written between 1953 and 2000 by Kuwaiti women. He examines portrayals of race, class, and gender relations in the two short stories of "al-Intiqam al-raib" ("The Horrible Revenge"), by Hayfa Hashim, and "Min milaff imra'a" ("From a Woman's File"), by Layla al-Uthman, and the three novels of Wasmiyya takhruj min al-bahr (Wasmiyya Emerges from the Sea) also by al-Uthman; Mudhakkirat khadim (A Servant's Diary), by Tayyiba al-Ibrahim; and Muzun (Muzun), by Fawziyya Shuwaysh al-Salam, arguing that their respective heroines, representing the pre-oil generations of Kuwaiti women, are presented as resistant and/or revolutionary figures in a struggle against male social dominance, contrary to the common notion of stereotypical passivity and resistance. Annotation c2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

O. Ishaq Tijani, Ph.D. (2005) in Modern Arabic Literature, University of Edinburgh, is Assistant Professor of Arabic at the American University of Sharjah, UAE. He has published articles in several scholarly journals, including the Journal of Arabic Literature (JAL) .