A Feminist Autobiography; Teta, Mother and Me: An Arab Woman's Memoir

Abstract

Jean Said Makdisi's Teta, Mother and Me: An Arab Woman's Memoir is a feminist memoir of personal inquiry and historical research. It opens with a “Prelude” which tells the story of the process of writing the book, and Jean Makdisi's concern with form and genre appears from the opening lines of the book. By pointing out the time distance between the decision to write and the act of writing, she is indirectly referring to generic issues related to memoir as a literary genre. Moreover, the “Prelude” situates Jean Makdisi's identification with her mother and grandmother (Teta), as well as her intention to explore and connect the lives of three generations of women in her family, which she expresses by saying: “I was going to write a loving double biography of my mother and grandmother from the vantage point of my own unsettling experiences as a modern Arab woman”