Sa'iba
Al-Bustani, Alis2026
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'Let us go on, then! And I will tell you the story of my sister and her daughter, from beginning to end.' Alis al-Bustani's 'Sa'iba' (1891) is one of the earliest known novels authored in Arabic by a female writer. Written when the Arabic novel was only in its third or fourth decade, it takes up the leading fictional theme of the era: the question of young people's choices in marriage in a society where their elders traditionally made these decisions. In 'Sa'iba', the focus is on what happens after the wedding, as the eponymous heroine has to fend off a jealous cousin who believes he has a right to her. Drawing on motifs of Victorian Gothic writing, brought into an Arab-Turkish fictional context, the novel powerfully shows the continuing hold of old ideas about women's sexual susceptibility and moral 'weakness', as such ideas were slowly giving way among educated Arab and other Ottoman middle classes to new ideals of companionship in marriage.
Main title:
Sa'iba / Alis al-Bustani ; translated by Marilyn Booth.
Author:
Al-Bustani, Alis, authorBooth, Marilyn, translator
Imprint:
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2026.
Collation:
176 pages ; 20 cm.
Series title:
Notes:
Translated from the Arabic.
ISBN:
9780198921684 (pbk. :)
Dewey class:
892.735
Language:
EnglishArabic
Subject:
BRN:
9103630