Identity and Patriarchy: Nadia Al-Kowkabani’s My Sana’a

Abstract

Nadia Al-kowkabani is a post-modern Yemeni novelist and short story writer whose powerful response to the longstanding patriarchy in Yemen informs her work. However, little is known about Al-Kowkabani and her literary oeuvre. This paper develops feminist perspectives to read Nadia Al-Kowkabani’s novel My Sana’a (2015), in Arabic, ‘Sana’ai-صنعائي’. It identifies a range of challenges that the novel presents to dominant discourses of identity and patriarchy, particularly in the context of Yemeni society. With this in mind, I argue that Al-Kowkabani’s My Sana’a is a powerful literary response to the double suffering of Yemeni women: They are being alienated from their own homeland for reasons of exile, or immigration, on the one hand; and, on the other, they are usually the objects of a male-dominated society. The protagonist’s dual identity in Al-Kowkabani’s novel is compounded by patriarchal norms that continue to govern the institution of marriage in Yemen. In addition to allusions to contemporary Arab critics and thinkers, the paper offers a comparative reading between Al-Kowkabani’s My Sana’a and Susan Abulhawa’s novel Mornings in Jenin, demonstrating the ways in which the heroines in both novels ‒ despite being caught up in quite similar situations ‒ react differently. My paper, therefore, calls for rethinking the whole question of women, particularly in Yemen; because it aids in redressing grievances and reclaiming truth. Keywords: Al-Kowkabani, exile, identity, feminist, nostalgia, patriarchal oppression.