Representations of Female Eroticism in Zakariyyā Tāmir: The Women’s Revolution from Object to Subject
in La rivista di Arablit, a. VI, n. 12, dicembre 2016, pp. 7-27.
This paper analyses the representations of the female body and of female sexuality in the works of Zakariyyā Tāmir (b. 1931). Motivating this focus on female eroticism is the desire to scrutinise its socio-political value contextualising it in the historical events of Syria, in the context of the collapse of the totalising nationalist ideologies world as analysed by Abu Deeb as well as its impact in a neopatriarchal milieu as described by Sharabi. In particular, this development is punctuated in the early period of Tāmir’s career by the emergence of the female’s perspective in contrast with patriarchy, exemplified in stories like al-‘Urs al-šarqī (The Oriental Wedding) and Waǧh al-qamar (The Moon’s Face). Epitomised in particular by Taksīr rukab (Breaking Knees) his latest works operate a definitive break with social realism, and the divorce from ideology, bestowing a greater degree of subjectivity on female characters that conquer the scene once and for all through a confident and overwhelmingly bold assertion of their sexuality.
