When a whisper becomes a scream: Tunisian oral culture in Fethia Hechmi's novel Maryam tasqut min yad Allah

Abstract

ABSTRACTTaking Tunisian author Fethia Hechmi's novel Mariam Falls from the Hands of God (2009) this article demonstrates how writing praxis allows incorporating women's oral culture into a written text, which in turn gives agency to women despite the hegemonic dominance of patriarchy. By offering a literary and cultural analysis of passages in Tunisian dialect, which Hechmi includes in her novel, I demonstrate the relevance of reviving women's collective oral memory that was dissipated in postcolonial Tunisia through the modernist Bourguibist project.