Decolonising sexuality in Egypt: al-Tatawwur’s struggle for liberation

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article analyses the related concepts of sexuality, body and gender and the role they played in the struggle for liberation in the literary magazine al-Tatawwur (1940–1941). Al-Tatawwur was a cultural, literary and artistic magazine, the space of contestation of the radical leftist group Art et Liberté (al-fann wa al-hurriyya). This magazine was the project of a new generation of Egyptian intellectuals from a mix political backgrounds, disillusioned with the parliamentary and party politics of the previous generation. It attempted to contest the new effendiyya (capitalist bourgeoisie) nationalist discourse and the semi-independent, European-controlled nation-state through art and culture. The problem of gender, sexuality and the body was studied in the Egyptian press in the interwar period. However, little attention has been paid to cultural magazines related to the newly emerging Egyptian left, and the way they dealt with the role sexuality would play in the liberation of the colonised. The aim of this article is to understand how gender, sexual desire and sexuality were key for the idea of liberation among the leftist intelligentsia in Egypt and how these concepts subverted the discourses of the newly created nation-state.