Dacia Maraini Research Articles

Raising Awareness of Female Genital Mutilation Through Theater.

This article considers several plays by European playwrights that focus on cases of female genital mutilation, with the goal of raising awareness among their communities of the practice itself, the reason it exists or persists, and the consequences it has had on the lives of the women who have undergone it. The plays discussed are "Kubra" by Dacia Maraini (2016); Little Stitches by Bahar Brunton, Karis E. Halsall, Isley Lynn and Raúl Quirós Molina (2014); and Cuttin' It by Charlene James (2016).

You Might as Well Live

You Might as Well Live Dacia Maraini (bio) Translation from the Italian Click for larger view View full resolution Photo by Abigail Keenan on Unsplash [End Page 10] Click for larger view View full resolution A young woman with two degrees and no job hits the streets of Palermo looking for work with only a Dorothy Parker poem to sustain her. Ratty slippers, disheveled hair, puffy eyes, Ramona leafs through the newspaper that a kind hand slid under her door. At the kitchen table, a cup of coffee with milk and a piece of toast sit in front of her. Her gaze falls upon the picture of an emaciated little boy with flies clustering at the corners of his mouth. Her stomach contracts: he's just a child and he already looks like an old man. His forehead is covered with wrinkles. The wrinkles of hunger, Ramona says to herself, as she pensively gazes at this heart-wrenching image. Here's someone who's more desperate than I am. Is it pity she feels? Of course it is, but she realizes that her commiseration has quickly slipped from the child to her own self: thirty-two years old, fatherless, dual-degree magna cum laude, and jobless. Up until now she has lived off her mother's pension, but with the introduction of the euro it's lost half its purchasing power. She had to leave the tiny apartment near the university, which afforded her some degree of independence, and move back to her childhood home, where she sleeps on a couch in the dinette because her mother has rented out her room to a student. Ramona has been getting up at seven for months now to go job hunting, but she's found absolutely nothing. If she didn't have the heated dinette to sleep in, if she couldn't take advantage of whatever little groceries her mother shares with her, what would she do? It's been a year since she's bought a pair of shoes: both the blue flats and the black heels to go out at night are beat up and scuffed. I'll have them fixed, she promises herself, even though she doesn't know where. She's never seen a shoe repair shop in the densely populated Zisa neighborhood where she lives. Do they even still exist? Ramona starts leafing through the paper again, pausing distractedly at the center spread. A half-naked woman is featured in a beer ad. For a moment her mind, still sleepy, lingers groggily, searching for the connection between the beer and the suggestively undressed woman, but she can't find it. Finally, here is the classifieds page. "Shampoo assistant for hair salon wanted." Red checkmark. Why not? Further below there's an ad for a delivery boy from a bakery. But could a delivery girl also apply, or not? Checkmark on that one too. "Bricklayer wanted," "housekeeper wanted," "model for the new line of Comfort and Seduction swimsuits wanted," checkmark or not? A recent grotesque experience at a modeling audition for a Candy panties ad comes to her mind. She found herself trapped in a pink parlor with only a pair of cherry-red panties on while a bald, paunchy, self-styled director instructed her to bend over, lift her leg, push out her chest. Meanwhile, a mustachioed photographer, squatting on the floor, was wielding a large camera that flashed and sounded like a spark-ignition engine. The director forced her to assume increasingly demeaning postures and she complied, albeit reluctantly, hoping it would soon be over and she'd walk out with a little money in her pocket. But it got worse. The bald, paunchy director asked her to take off her panties "to take the shoot to the next level," and as she mumbled that was not part of the deal, she found him beside her on the loveseat undoing his pants. In the meantime the photographer with the bushy moustache kept shooting. At that point she had fled the scene swearing. [End Page 11] Click for larger view View full resolution She finished dressing as she ran down the stairs. Nope, no checkmark. She doesn...

«I Will Eat You and Spit You Out»: A Reading of the ‘Lesbian Machine’ in Dacia Maraini’s Lettere a Marina

This article analyzes the «lesbian-machines» (Grosz 1995, 184) at work in Dacia Maraini’s novel Lettere a Marina (1981) and collection of poems Mangiami pure (1978). To this purpose, I engage with two conceptions of desire within the western philosophical tradition. Firstly, examining the development of the metaphor of cannibalism or ‘eros fagico’, I argue that Maraini avoids the ontologization of the notion of desire considered as a lack and thus disengages it from its historical association with the denigration of the female other. Secondly, conceiving desire as a force of production, relational and creative, I explore a particular use of metaphors in the novel which leads to bodily transformations or metamorphosis, without, however, reaching the subject’s imperceptibility through progressive identification. The co-presence and re-elaboration of two, apparently incompatible, theories of desire underline female same-sex desire’s potential to be thought and actualized as a lack and a production, its tendency to annihilate and being annihilated as well as its creative impulses. As a result, Dacia Maraini’s Lettere a Marina and Mangiami pure complicate and destabilize the fixity of representational categories, expanding discourses on lesbianism and lesbian desire. Indeed, the convolution of negative and positive dilates the domain of desire and multiplies its possibilities, carving out a «narrative space in which women might desire differently» (Ross 2015, 16), beyond the heterosexual norm and in diverse ways, who and how they please.

Dacia Maraini and Her Literary Journey

Dacia Maraini and Her Literary Journey

Performing Gender, Gender as Performance: Politics, Aesthetics and Performativity in Dacia Maraini’s ‘Barricade’ Theatre

Dacia Maraini’s 1970s dramaturgical oeuvre, which the author has identified as her most ‘barricade’ theatre, evidences an undisputable commitment to the cause of second-wave Italian feminism. While the connection between social protest and women’s self-representation in Maraini’s theatre has amply, and convincingly, been discussed (Sumeli Weinberg 1993; Cavallaro 2000; Mariani: 1998, 2000; Cruciata 2003; Marinelli and Matassa 2008), her use of feminist ideology in disrupting existing aesthetic conventions has received scarce scholarly attention. Current criticism of feminist theatre in general, and of Maraini’s in particular, seems to privilege the dramatic text at the expenses of an equally as important analysis of the visual aspects of the theatrical performance per se. This article acknowledges the dramatic work as an embodied form of narration that, as such, is best analysed by taking into account, also, its aesthetic components. It discusses two plays, Il Manifesto (1969) and La donna perfetta (1974), that are representative of Maraini’s gender politics and theatrical aesthetics at the time they were written. Looking not just at the written text, but also at the original video recordings of the performances, the aim of my study is twofold. Firstly, it assesses the use of theatre in rethinking the representation of women’s gender roles in 1970s. Secondly, it foregrounds the impact of feminist ideology in rupturing existing dramatic conventions. Continuing the line of mimetic rejection inaugurated in the Italian context by Luigi Pirandello amongst others, whilst also distancing itself from the excess of experimentalism of the coeval neo-avant-garde, Maraini’s feminist theatre proves a convincing political tool to restore the voice of women’s long silenced body — with the focus on the theatrical (in the sense of both dramatic and deliberately exaggerated) nature of the gendered identity performed on stage. Starting from the premise that our masculine and feminine roles are not rooted in biology or anatomy, but in codes of behaviour that are learned and then re-enacted on a daily basis (Butler 1988, 1999), the plays discussed here exemplify the way in which feminist performance can become a privileged site through which these reiterations emerge, and theatre the space that makes this emergence possible.

Loneliness, Violence and Rebirth in Xialou Guo's Village of Stone and Dacia Maraini's The Silent Duchess

The Village ve The Silent Duchess adlı romanlar günümüz ve 18. yüzyıl erkek egemen toplumunda kadına uygulanan baskıyı ele almaktadır. Her iki romanın kahramanı da benzer deneyimlerden geçmekte ve romanlar da benzer şekilde sona ermektedir. Karamsar ve kasvetli başlayan romanlar sonunda geleceğe ümit ve iyimserlikle bakmaktadırlar. Bu çerçevede, bu çalışma kahramanların karşılaştıkları zorlukları ele almakta ve kendi iradelerini ortaya koydukları sürece kadınların zafere ulaşacaklarının kaçınılmaz olduğunu göstermektedir.

Gli anni Settanta tra violenza di genere e decostruzione del maschile: La scuola cattolica di Edoardo Albinati

ABSTRACTIn his recent novel, La scuola cattolica (2016), Edoardo Albinati constructs through autofiction a complex discourse on the ‘anthropological change’ that occurred in Italy during the 1970s. This article explores how, by placing the notorious ‘Circeo crime’ (Rome, 1975) at the centre of his story, the author deconstructs the processes by which capitalism in Italy variously effected social transformation, and his exploration of a violence based on the cult of machismo and masculinity. In this respect the Catholic school functions as one of the factors contributing to the failed construction of masculine identity in this period, and the promotion of the phenomenon of gender-based violence which aims at preventing women’s emancipation from a patriarchal and phallocentric society. It is argued that Albinati, while initially adopting historical-cultural premises which coincide with Pasolini’s last works, is ultimately influenced by certain theories from feminist criticism (especially Raewyn W. Connell and Dacia Maraini). Albinati shows that now, as then, there are still profound differences in gender in Italian society.

Dacia Maraini’s La lunga vita di Marianna Ucrìa: Towards a New Theory of Female Fetishism and Restoring Marianna’s Voice

This article examines the insights into Dacia Maraini’s La lunga vita di Marianna Ucrìa (1990) that may be gained through consideration of the nexus between the psychoanalytic fetish and the social subject. Marianna Ucrìa/Marianna Ucrìa, as both historical/literary figure and novel, requires us to reimagine traditional notions of social subjectivity’s foundation on the voice and speakability, which allows us to formulate a theory of a female fetish(ist/ism) with which we can recast the traditional Freudian paradigm. Through a survey of key theorists of (female) fetishism blended with elements of literary criticism and philosophy, this article explores the father/daughter relationship and conceives of (female) fetishism as a form of resistance to the phallogocentric system by and within which social and narrative subjectivity is traditionally formed. This reading enables a more nuanced understanding of speaking subjectivity, as both literary and social intelligibility, and, through the “fetish voice,” restores Marianna Ucrìa’s voice.

Beyond Rape: Dacia Maraini’s Donna in guerra and Maria Schiavo’s Macellum in the 1970s Italian Feminist Debate on Gender Violence

This article reads two feminist literary works on gender violence, Maraini’s Donna in guerra (1975) and Schiavo’s Macellum (1979), through the lens of the political discourse that the Italian feminist movement developed in relation to the issue of rape in the late 1970s. Adopting the classification offered by Johan Galtung’s theory on direct, structural and cultural violence, as well as Pierre Bourdieu’s theorization on symbolic violence, this essay aims at pinpointing ideological differences between Maraini’s and Schiavo’s narratives. In particular, it argues that, if Donna in guerra denounces direct and structural abuses on women, thus calling for institutional change, Macellum is an accusation against a cultural violence that cannot be fought with the tool of law. Maraini’s and Schiavo’s approaches, which mirror the standpoints of different factions of the movement of the time, are then considered in relation to Teresa de Lauretis’ ideas on the structure of feminist thought and politics, in order to illustrate that both approaches are in fact essential for the subversion of violent sexist dynamics.

Dacia Maraini's Narratives of Survival: (Re)Constructed

Dacia Maraini's Narratives of Survival: (Re)Constructed

Celebrating the Puterbaugh Legacy and A Tribute to Alene Webb Puterbaugh

52 wlt may / august 2015 To the students in my magazine publishing class, I often cite Michael Robert Evans’s assertion that “editing is primarily about people ,” not words. By extension, universities are less about buildings and the spaces—geographical or intellectual—they occupy than about the people who inhabit and enliven them. And for a campus-based literary magazine like World Literature Today, one of the great privileges of working with authors from around the world is that we get to introduce these writers to our students and faculty/staff colleagues here at the University of Oklahoma, our home. Since 1968, twenty-seven internationally renowned writers have taken part in what is now known as the Puterbaugh Festival of International Literature & Culture, a tradition that has benefited thousands of students who are given the opportunity to meet these world-class authors in person, read their work, and engage in discussions about the importance of literature in a global era. When the writers visit the OU campus in Norman, a semester-long course is based on their work, and many of the students receive full-tuition Puterbaugh scholarships to take the class; a public symposium with a range of international authors, translators, and scholars is built around the marquee writer’s presence; and several days’ worth of cultural events take place—including, in recent years, poetry and fiction readings; dance, theater, and musical performances; and museum exhibits. The festivals are made possible by a generous grant from the Puterbaugh Foundation of McAlester, Oklahoma, and continue to be a living tribute to J. G. Puterbaugh (1876–1965), an Oklahoma philanthropist, entrepreneur, and civic leader who loved poetry and believed it to be a source of cultural enlightenment and a means for understanding other cultures from around the world. Mr. Puterbaugh—a voracious reader who taught himself Latin— also believed in learning foreign languages as a primary means of gaining insight into other cultures. In 2015, fifty years after his death, the editors of WLT decided to present this celebration of the Puterbaugh legacy in the present issue, with contributions by six writers who have taken part in the festival in recent years. When the University of Oklahoma presented Mr. Puterbaugh the Distinguished Service Citation in April 1951, President George Lynn Cross paid him the following tribute: “J. G. Puterbaugh used a free hand to scatter to others the benefits he could have claimed for himself.” One of the most famous landmarks on the Norman campus is the statue of the seed sower, a drawing of which is part of the official university seal. What better way to characterize the literary legacy of Mr. Puterbaugh himself? Daniel Simon special section celebrating the puterbaugh legacy featuring Luisa Valenzuela 54 Marina Carr 55 dacia maraini 56 Roberto Fernández Retamar 57 j. m. coetzee 58 maaza mengiste 59 A Tribute to Alene Webb Puterbaugh (1890–1985) by Daniel Simon In March 1972, in response to a letter from University of Oklahoma president Paul F. Sharp addressed to her late husband , Alene Puterbaugh wrote: “I wish to acknowledge with many thanks your courteous tender of a place on the Advisory Committee for Books Abroad [World Literature Today’s predecessor]. I scarcely know what this will involve, but the expression ‘Advisory Committee’ does not seem to be very threatening, and I shall be most happy to be of whatever assistance I can in the good work of Dr. Ivar Ivask’s program.” Professor Ivask, hired in 1967 as the sixth editor in Books Abroad’s history, was working with President Sharp to put together a committee of “concerned patrons” from around the state “whose collective wisdom [could] be brought to bear on the present and future activities” of the journal. After graciously accepting Dr. Sharp’s invitation, Alene immediately took a liking to Ivar and his wife, Astrid, two Baltic émigrés who, after moving to Oklahoma, quickly embraced the university community and championed its literary journal as a “voice of sanity from the center” of the United States. When Ivar and Astrid visited Alene in McAlester in October 1972, they instantly bonded over a shared love of cosmopolitan music and literature. Afterward, Ivar wrote Alene...

Wellington 2013 – «Solo le storie sono capaci di colmare gli squarci del dolore. Solo le storie ci aiutano a sopravvivere»: Autobiographic Traces in the Narratives of Dacia Maraini

The publication of Dacia Maraini’s "Bagheria" in 1993 and "La nave per Kobe" in 2001 indicate a significant foray into life writing by the author, and the beginning of a more concerted move towards self-representation, which continues in texts such as "La grande festa" (2011) and "Chiara di Assisi – Elogio della disobbedienza" (2013). It is, however, a genre that Maraini had previously admitted to being challenging for her to confront. This article considers a number of ‘autobiographic traces’ in Maraini’s earlier works as examples of fictionalized articulations of traumatic events and, likewise, how Maraini’s perceived difficulty with the genre manifests itself in "La nave per Kobe" through a certain level of textual turbulence. It explores the trouble that Maraini has in constructing the autobiographic ‘I’ before arguing that the inclusion of her mother’s diaries in this particular work gives Maraini the confidence needed to do so.

Between ‘Men’: Masculinities and Female (Perverse) Desire in Dacia Maraini’s Donna in Guerra

Representations of masculinities in Dacia Maraini’s Donna in guerra (1975) have received scarce critical attention. Against a backdrop of feminist criticism that deals with female characters and female emancipation, this article focuses on portrayals of non-dominant masculinities and on representations of perverse female desires as sites of denaturalization of the link between men and power. Drawing on recent scholarship on masculinity, on gay studies, and on theories of desire by Eve Sedgwick, Teresa De Lauretis, and Mario Mieli, I follow a two-fold direction. First, I analyse the silent economy of male desires (hustling, male entrustment) that shape non-dominant masculinities, thus showing that some men — because of class, geography and sexuality — suffer oppression in the novel. Then I argue that female perverse desire (especially lesbian desire) emerges to foreground a gender power differential, which ensures a dichotomization of female homosociality and homoeroticism, and results in the ultimate elision of lesbianism.

La presenza subalterna in Italia e la scrittura come terapia

From a theoretical and social point of view, modern Italophone postcolonial writing relegates to ways of receiving reality in the tradition of Verism and Neorealism,especially if aspects of violence are being considered. Notably the texts of female immigrant writers represent the subaltern (Gayatri C. Spivak) as they reflect thebiographical traumatic experiences of their authors or historical violent backgroundsof the plots. In this sense, according to the paradigm of James W. Pennebaker (Writing Therapy), writing often assumes a therapeutical function. This article recalls the first attempts of articulating the Italian colonial past in literature, starting with Ennio Flaiano and Mario Tobino, and then focusing on the innovative migratory texts of female Italophone writers from the 1990s onwards, namely those of Ribka Sibhatu,Cristina Ali Farah, Gabriella Ghermandi and Igiaba Scego who culturally speaking all originate from former Italian colonies in Africa. By making use of the theorems ofArmando Gnisci and Dacia Maraini, it becomes evident how female Italophone migrant writing must be recognized not only as a process of sensitization, but also asillness and therapy at the same time. Thus, the act of writing creates a transculturalspace of both conflict and encounter, in which a talking back from the periphery of Italian society takes place, with the effect of reconciling Italy with its colonialhistory and globalized present.

Female Voice in Dacia Maraini’s Norma ‘44

Author(s): Streifer, Monica | Abstract: This essay provides an introduction to and interpretation of the play Norma ’44 by the Italian feminist writer Dacia Maraini (1986), translated here for the first time into English. Maraini’s play focuses on the story of two Jewish Italian women imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp during World War Two. Starting with the title itself, the play incorporates references to the famous bel canto opera Norma by composer Vincenzo Bellini and librettist Felice Romani (1831). The plot of Norma ’44 clearly parallels the plot of the opera, but Maraini’s play additionally engages with the predecessor text through a layering that is meta- and inter-textual, historical, and mythical. The characters of the play; Karl, Sara, and Lidia, directly mirror and echo the protagonists of the opera; Pollione, Norma, and Adalgisa. Not only do they interact in the present time of the play in ways that unconsciously imitate the plot of the opera, they also concurrently rehearse and stage the very same scenes from the opera. This produces an uncanny mirror-like and echo-like effect of which Maraini’s protagonists become conscious of only once it is too late to change the course of the dramatic action. While the opera can be seen as the structuring device that informs the tragic action of the play, it serves as much more than just a plot device. Specifically, the opera functions in the play as a musical and cultural subtext that evokes the distinct power of the female voice and the strength of female solidarity and friendship. Although the principal events of Maraini’s drama echo to some extent those of Bellini’s tragic opera, Norma ’44 is not merely a modern adaptation of the opera as much as a feminist take on some of its key themes. With its powerful female protagonist and matriarchal milieu, the opera by Bellini and Romani has an arguably proto-feminist orientation rare for its time, providing a compelling foundation for Maraini’s contemporary work.

Dacia Maraini's Norma '44: An English Language Translation

This is the first English-language translation of the play Norma ’44 (1986) by Italian feminist writer Dacia Maraini. Norma ’44 is the story of two Jewish Italian women who are forced to stage a production of Norma while imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp during World War Two. Starting with the title itself, the play incorporates references to the famous bel canto opera Norma by composer Vincenzo Bellini and librettist Felice Romani (1831). The plot of Norma ’44 clearly parallels the plot of Bellini’s opera, with the characters of the play; Karl, Sara, and Lidia, directly mirroring and echoing the protagonists of the opera; Pollione, Norma, and Adalgisa. Karl puts a recording of the opera on the phonograph and from that point forward each actor intermittently sings along with his or her respective part. Maraini structures the play as a series of rehearsals for the ultimate performance of Norma for Colonel Saidler, a performance that never takes place.

Politicizing the puttana: changing representations of the prostitute in the works of Dacia Maraini

Politicizing the puttana: changing representations of the prostitute in the works of Dacia Maraini

Politicizing theputtana: changing representations of the prostitute in the works of Dacia Maraini

Politicizing the<i>puttana</i>: changing representations of the prostitute in the works of Dacia Maraini

En busca de la sombra y los sueños de Clitemnestra: La revisión del mito en la obra dramática de María José Ragué-Arias y Dacia Maraini

For centuries, the myth of the Oresteia has been one of the pillars of patriarchal cultures. The revisionist trend that has appeared in European literature in the last decades urges the establishment of a new symbolic order that embraces maternal genealogies. I sogni di Clitennestra (1981) by Dacia Maraini and Clitemnestra (1986) by María José Ragué-Arias rewrite the Orestes myth from a feminist perspective, warning about the dangers involved in the perception of the mother as a monstrous and phobic object that must be eliminated. Their works show that psychic matricide is not a viable way to acquire subjectivity, since it is based in masculine anxieties and in absolute identification with the father, which is in turn the base for a society also founded on violence. Maraini and Ragué-Arias vindicate Clytemnestra while denouncing the violence inherent to the patriarchal order of Western societies.

La seduzione dell'altrove by Dacia Maraini (review)

thenovel,abouttheadvantages of exile, abouttherelationship between sentiment and brutality, aboutthe decline intheneedfor art. Josipovici argues, rather abstractly ,forthenecessity ofmaintaining contact withreality. Kunderatalks aboutreal people and real issues. Josipovici's bookisbasedonlearning, Kundera's onexperience; Josipovici's onanalysis, Kundera's onsympathetic reflection. We canlisten, perhaps guardedly, toJosipovici; we feelthat we cantalktoKundera, whois not only humane buthuman. Robert Murray Davis University ofOklahoma DaciaMaraini. La seduzionedell'altrove . Milan. Rizzoli. 2010.174pages. €1 7.50. isbn 978-88-1 7-04367-0 Alwayscuriousabout the Other, Dacia Marainiopens La seduzione dell'altrove, a collectionof short pieces,witha meditation on why we leavethecomforts ofourhome totravel. Whyourfascination with things foreign, exotic? Itderives, she suggests, from a "loveofthedifferent ,""theseduction ofelsewhere." Herowndesirefor travel was early instilled by hermother and father whosewanderlust tookhertoJapan whenshewas oneyearold. [Editorialnote : Seeheressay"DearJapan" onpage30ofthisissue.]Onlylater, whenshereturned toItaly - a place she had long thought exotic - did shelearn from Italians that they considered Japan a strange andwonderfulplace .Whatis exotic toone(the outsider)is humdrum to another (theinhabitant). Herdesiretosee thenewand different hasledhertomanycountries , traveling on herownorwith a companion, as she believesone cannotreallysee and understand a country or itspeopleon guided tours. Maraini's reputation asa playwright andherinterest inwomen's theater worldwide alsoallowherto makecontacts mosttravelers cannotenjoy .In accordance withher lifelong concern, sheconcentrates on thelivesofwomen inthis collection. InNairobi sheattended a poetry reading bya women's theater group inSwahili, English, andItalian. This groupalso presented a monologue inEnglish, A Woman Alone, written byDarioFo.Shetalked with, shared experiences with, and observed the customs ofwomenin countries as different as Serbia,Africa, China, Korea, South America, Zurich, Cuba, andtheUnited States. Manyofthese twenty-eight articles arebrief summariesas short as three pages;the most detailed piece recountsin twenty-eight pagesa tripto Kenya with Alberto Moravia. In Kenya,Maraini spoke to womenrefugees from Somaliaand Sudan who had fledmen armed withrifles and clubsandwhonow livedinprimitive campssetup for them.Manyof thesewomenhad been forcedto witnessthe murderoftheir husbands andchildren, onlythentobe gangraped.In any negotiations forpeace,however, it is the"Warlords," as themencall themselves, whoparticipate instead ofthose women whokeeplife going intheareasdevastated bywar. Dacia Maraini'squest forthe exotic leadsherawayfrom familiar homecomforts andhabits intonew and strange worlds;aided by her interest in womeneverywhere, she is rewarded bya network ofmeaningful connections. Martha ]. King Clearwater, Florida Nota Bene Rob Vollmar &Marvin Perry Mann Inattna's Tears Archaia Even though our scholarly textbooks may leave itout, Vollmar andMann bring tolife the tale ofEntika, a young priestess ofthe goddess Inanna inancient Sumerian civilization . The illustrations, somewhat reminiscent of Frank Miller's work, lend themselves well tothe energetic force of the story. Amina Zaydan Red Wine American University in Cairo Press This corriing-of-age narrative set inmodern Egypt tells the inner thoughts and emotions of awoman battling religiosity, nationalism, andgender roles. The narrator hasa commanding voice, andtheprose itself reads like poetry. July -August 201 1179 ...