Ahdaf Soueif’in In the Eye of the Sun Adlı Yapıtında Melezlik ve Sömürgeci Arzu

Abstract

Ahdaf Soueif is a contemporary Egyptian-British novelist and cultural theorist and In the Eye of the Sun, her first novel published in 1992, tells the emotional, sexual and academic journey of Asya, an Arab Muslim student, and later professor, of English Literature in England and Egypt. In this novel, Soueif emphasises post-colonial reconsiderations and accordingly demonstrates her conscious attempt with extensive references to the colonial and imperial history of Egypt. The present study in particular looks at desire and hybridity in the novel with Robert J. C. Young’s Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race and offers an interpretation of the post-colonial Other’s interpellation by the culture of the coloniser and of desire which is problematized by reading about desire in imperial culture. In investigating these points, it is stated that the problematic and hegemonic centrality of English Literature for the Arab female characters makes post-colonial texts haunted and post-colonial discussions around adultery, alterity and sexual imperialism shape the content of the novel. By describing and considering these issues, this study attempts to offer a post-colonial reading of the novel.