À la quête de la femme de personne: textual deliverance of the female body within contemporary Moroccan women's writing

This thesis presents a study of Francophone Moroccan women’s writing since its emergence in the 1980s to the present day. Drawing on the works of three authors who span the history of the literary tradition of the novel; Noufissa Sbaï, Houria Boussejra and Leïla Slimani, the study offers an overview of the socio-political context of the genre as it has evolved, while also providing a literary analysis of the primary themes and characteristics that dominate women’s writing. Historically, women have been excluded from the domain of written culture within Morocco, and until the 1980s, their histories were written primarily from the male perspective. Similarly, the study of novels produced by female authors has also been neglected at the academic level. This thesis attempts to pay homage to the corpus of works produced by female authors in French by examining how and why the female author writes. The political, social and aesthetic significance of women’s writing is explored through a feminist lens informed by theorists Hélène Cixous, bell hooks and Fatima Mernissi, revealing a shared desire amongst female authors to both challenge and rewrite the place assigned to woman within the patriarchal social imaginary. Their novels underscore the link between agency and voice and the vital role that writing can play in reappropriating one’s history and in expressing one’s subjectivity. The authors within this corpus are emblematic of what Suellen Diaconoff has termed “storytellers with a purpose,” and have answered Cixous’ call for woman to write woman in order to liberate the female body from patriarchal discourse and limiting social norms. Through the medium of the novel, Sbaï, Boussejra and Slimani have created a public space of resistance where previous representations of woman can be recontextualised; where women are encouraged to express and define their identities on their own terms. Sbaï, Boussejra and Slimani have transgressed the traditional space and place of the Moroccan woman in search of “la femme de personne” – the woman who belongs to no one – the woman who is free. By rewriting the female body from the perspective of woman and in reframing the narratives of traditional female stereotypes, the authors of our corpus are actively engaged in what Cixous envisaged as écriture féminine and the symbolic revolution of woman; in the creation of la femme de personne. It is the conviction of this author that it is by writing la femme de personne into the social imaginary that women writers succeed in offering textual deliverance to the female body.

Funder

Irish Research Council

Publisher

University of Galway

Rights

CC BY-NC-ND

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Collections

University of Galway Theses (PhD Theses)