Short stories
Aisha
Ahdaf Soueif · 1983
Synopsis
Eight stories, according to the London review that covered it in 1983, make up the cycle of a single life: Aisha, a young Egyptian woman from the intellectual bourgeoisie, grows up between Cairo and England, from childhood to adulthood, through marriage, estrangement, sexuality and mourning. Around her pass women from other backgrounds, such as Zeina and Tahiyya, who accept the patriarchal order that she refuses, an apprentice hairdresser seized by desire, a schoolgirl in England in 1964, a zar session. The collection, fragmentary, does not follow chronological order.
Context
The collection appeared in London from Jonathan Cape in 1983; the author's first book, written in English, it was shortlisted the same year for the Guardian Fiction Prize, according to the British Council. Edward Said praised in it a “skilful and patient” style, which makes the experience neither exotic nor a pretext for an ideological explanation, and which is neither quite Arabic nor quite English. A study from the University of Valencia calls it partly autobiographical; it is reported that Arabic-speaking readers hear Arabic beneath the English sentence.
Who it is for
A story collection in English, of about one hundred and sixty pages; no French translation has been found.
Prizes and reception
The first book by an Egyptian author writing in English, welcomed on publication by the British literary press.
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