Books

In the preface to The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology, the editor, Nathalie Handal begins: “This anthology was prepared to eradicate invisibility: to provide an introduction to Arab women poets, to make visible the works of a great number of Arab women poets, who are virtually unknown to the West” (Handal, The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology, XII). From its inception several months ago, our series “Writing from the Margins,” also strives to do the same thing: to give rise to previously unheard women’s voices. As Handal’s citation reminds us, however, the idea of “the margins” relative depending on where we situate ourselves. This month is dedicated to four poets from the Maghreb, which most commonly refers to Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria. The Maghreb has proven to have especially porous boundaries and, in the past, has included Spain, Sicily and Malta, as well. Marked by the Moorish conquests and, most recently, colonialism, the Maghreb continues to be haunted by its struggles for independence from European rule. Because of its turbulent past, it is also an especially fecund place full of literary, artistic, and cultural exchanges. Tunisian, Algerian, and Moroccan writers, for example, write in multiple languages—namely French, Berber, and Arabic—which is due to the past French rule of the area. As a result of the Maghreb’s past, “Many North African poets deal with the issues of bicultural anxiety, bilingualism, duality, pluralism, exile, emigration (describing life in France as North African immigrants) and conflicting or lost identities” (30). These issues are, of course, even more acute for Maghrebian women writers who struggle to be recognized both within their native countries as well as in the West. In this way, they are doubly silenced. For this reason and always with the goal of rendering visible the invisible—or at least less well-known—writers, this month I’ll be focusing on three writers from the Maghreb: Habiba Muhammadi from Algeria, Wafaa’ Lamrani from Morocco, and Amina Said from Tunisia. Read more

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