The focus of this paper will be on Iraqi women writing their personal daily experiences of the war(s) in Iraq. I argue that these women write on their personal experiences in order to paint the struggles of the collective Iraqi experience of the war. This incorporates two trends in which Joseph Zeidan calls the quest for personal and national identity (Zeidan, 1995). Based on readings of their narrations one can get a better idea in terms of the way Iraqis and particularly Iraqi women, deal with life under certain strenuous conditions as well as their collective experience under these conditions. These Iraqi women writers deliver to the reader the point of view or perspective of the Iraqi women based on their firsthand experiences of the war. This female perspective of the war, sanctions, and exile provides a unique lens from the inside to those who are used to seeing these events from the outside, from an external lens. This paper will present the historical and political realities Iraqi women write about, and the factors that have shaped the way they write about their homeland. The theoretical frameworks this paper will draw on feminist theory, postmodern theory, and post-colonial theory. Although several Iraqi women have written about themes of exile and war, the focus of this paper will be on the following books: Iqbal Al-Qazwani’s “Zubaida’s Window” (Al-Qazwini, Eng. 2007:11), and Betool Khedairi’s “A Sky So Close” (Khedairi, Eng. 2001). Through these two novels one can reflect upon the Iraq war(s) through a lens different from what one is used to seeing. The significance of these novels lies in their description of the war(s) and exile and the impact they had on their personal lives.

The Kurdish Novel from Kurdistan to Exile: A Comparative Analysis of Novelistic Discourse in Kurmanji Dialect between Kurdistan and its Diaspora with regard to the idea of home, Nationalism, and Identity. Through this topic, I basically aim at analysing how differently the idea of home, nationalism, Kurdish identity, and the sense of belonging are dealt with in each selected Kurdish novel in order to explore thematic differences and approaches between novels published in Kurdistan and Diaspora. Not only have the linguistic diversity and the lack of political and national unity shaped the fragmented character of Kurdish novelistic discourse, yet forced displacement and voluntary migration of many Kurds westward in search of freedom has led to the creation of a different literary narrative discourse in terms of the way in which the idea of home, identity, and nation are regarded. Due to limitation of this research and opportunities, Kurdish novels in Kurmanji dialect and its Diaspora will be my main concern throughout this study. Because their mother tongue was banned, Kurdish writers in Turkey and Syria have differences from other writers in certain aspects including the idea of home, identity and the sense of belonging. Their current situation and specific problems can be better understood in the context of the events in the past, the long-lasting ban on their language and the oppression. Therefore, this paper will also focus on the historical background and the situation of the Kurdish language mainly in Turkey and Syria. When and why did the ban on Kurdish publications start? How was this put into practice? Within the literary genre, my main concern will be the novel form. The reason for this lies behind the accepted notion affirming the close relationship between novel and nation-building. Due to the lack of a nation-state, the Kurdish novel exists mainly in the context to pursue national identity and the aspiration for a homeland. However, can we talk about the same aspiration or struggle for novels written/published in Kurdistan and those written in its Diaspora? What happens to the idea of ‘home’ for Kurdish migrant authors who live far from the lands of their birth? How might their travels impact upon the ways home and identity are considered? Thus, approaching questions above, with this paper, I will mainly attempt to examine the differences in the perception of homeland, nationalism, and identity in novels both in Diaspora and Kurdistan.

Part of the observed interest in all things American in the Arab World today is the relatively recent phenomenon of the treatment of the American academic world in Arabic literary texts. Musings and reminiscences about the American academic setting have always formed part of memoirs by authors who lived or studied in the United States at one point of their life. This can be seen most recently in the autobiographies of some major Arab writers like Abdul Wahhab al-Mesiri in “My Intellectual Journey in Seeds, Roots, and Fruits” (2001) and Jalal Amin in “What Life Has Taught Me” (2007), both dedicating whole chapters for the discussion of “their” American experience. Others chose to write about their experience in well-circulated Arabic journals such as the piece “My Journey to America” by Dr. Jaber Asfour in al-Arabi magazine (2006). Still, the more intriguing portrayal is to be found in the fictionalized rendering of the American academy by some leading Arab novelists. Among the most prominent are two best-selling authors who chose the American university as the setting for their stories and conflicts: Sun’allah Ibrahim in his “Amrikanli (à la American)” (2004) and Alaa al-Aswany in “Chicago.” This paper examines the portrayal of the American academic locus in recent Arabic literature, comparing those texts that approach the American university as an experiential lived-in reality with those that provide a fictionalized envisioning of the world of the “learned other.” It hypothesizes that the choosing of the American academic world as a fictional setting is not merely occasioned by the authors’ familiarity with the setting as much as a desire to explore what many Arab intellectuals regard as the institution standardizing/legitimizing Western political and cultural ethos with which they find themselves locked in an enchantingly adversarial inexorable relationship. The paper seeks to shed some light on this rather recent phenomenon in Arabic letters by studying its literary, historical, and political contexts and the main causes behind its rise, pointing out the cultural and civilizational outlooks and perceptions that underlie the texts’ images, motifs, and patterns.

Etel Adnan’s Sitt Marie Rose addresses the city of Beirut as a theme and a setting intermingled with the novel’s structure. Beirut is portrayed as a global city deliberately connected to its inhabitants through the predicament of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975. The city becomes a character that participates in developing the plot and unfolding the thematic concerns Adnan offers in her controversial novel. The places and the images show how the city and the characters interact in a critical historical context—the Civil War. This paper investigates how the novel depicts war as a fragmentation and a reconstruction of the self, as manifested by the protagonist, Sitt Marie Rose. It shows the impact of war on transforming people’s perceptions about traditions, social beliefs, and their identities as Lebanese. The war creates a crucial connection between Sitt Marie Rose’s sexual experience, social beliefs, and her sense of identity. I argue that the novel renders reality of the war and the responsibility the individuals share in perpetuating it; increasing its effects, and internalizing and demonstrating its violence among themselves. The paper emphasizes the power of war on the dynamic interplay of responsibility and the reconstruction of the self and others. Informed by theories of city and town (Lewald, Malmstad, Dwyer, Baudrillard, and Williams), I analyze how Beirut gains an all-encompassing identity and becomes synonymous with the triumph of static forms that are alien not only to Beirut but to every city at war.