Tuqan and Dayan: Palestinian and Israeli Women between Romance and Tragedy

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article examines the status of women before and after the Arab–Israeli wars, particularly the 1967 War, in the works of the Palestinian poet Fadwa Tuqan (1917–2003) and Israeli novelist and peace activist Yaël Dayan (1939–). In the history of Arab–Jewish struggle, the years 1967 and 1973 represent major national events that registered not only the changing political topographies of both Israel and Palestine but also the transformation of women’s roles and voices within Israeli and Palestinian societies. Prior to the outbreak of these wars, and particularly during the 1950s and 60s, Tuqan’s and Dayan’s writings demonstrated a bold expression of women’s sexual identities and social presence that emerged in response to a deliberate suppression by Palestinian and Israeli patriarchal voices and controlling milieu. The dénouements of both wars, however, transformed the authors’ representation of women’s romantic and social spaces into a nationalistic discourse that emphasised the language of war, suffering and homeland.