Sharif Gemi explores the complex politics of women writing in, and about, Muslim societies.
This book looks at the rise of Muslim writing by both western and Muslim women, from pioneering female travellers like Freya Stark and Edith Wharton in the early twentieth century, whose accounts were usually playful and humorous, to the present day and such works as Azar Nafisi’s ‘Reading Lolita’ in Tehran and Betty Mahmoody’s ‘Not Without My Daughter’, which present a radically different view of Muslim societies, marked by fear, hostility and even disgust. ‘Women’s Writing and Muslim Societies’ examines these various journeys across cultural, political and religious borders.