| Anxiety of Erasure: Trauma, Authorship, and the Diaspora in Arab Women''s Writings Subjects: Arabic literature -- America -- History and criticism; Arabic literature -- Europe -- History and criticism; Arabic literature -- Women authors -- History and criticism; Autobiographical fiction Arabic -- History and criticism; Psychic trauma in literatu; Far from offering another study that bemoans Arab women's repression and veiling, Anxiety of Erasure looks at Arab women writers living in the diaspora who have translated their experiences into a productive and creative force. In this book, Al-Samman articulates the therapeutic effects of revisiting forgotten histories and of activating two cultural tropes: that of the maw'udah (buried female infant) and that of Shahrazad in the process of revolutionary change. She asks what it means to develop a national, gendered consciousness from diasporic locals while staying committed to the homeland. Hanadi Al-Samman is associate professor of Arabic language and literature in the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Virginia. |