Women, writing and politics in Sonallah Ibrahim's That Smell and Notes from Prison

ABSTRACT

In That Smell and Notes from Prison, Sonallah Ibrahim engages literary and feminist discourses in his political narrative against the Nasserist regime and the culture of commitment (iltizam) of the 1960s. Ibrahim's antihero is a newly released writer who is faced with the challenges of overcoming his failure to connect with women and society, and find a motivation to write. He realizes that most readers, writers and critics are not in favour of his literature of exposé, which refuses to depict or treat the ugly reality as a beautiful one. In foreshadowing the 1967 defeat and the impotence of Arabs, That Smell and Notes from Prison warns of a prolonged cultural and literary decay should political corruption override basic human and women's rights in the Arab world.

KEYWORDS:

• Nasserism
• commitment
• Arab women
• politics of publication
• Sonallah Ibrahim
• sexuality in Arabic literature

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. A. Haist, “This Reality Is Deplorable”: The Egypt of Sonallah Ibrahim; Between Media Representation and Experienced Everyday Reality in Arabic Literature: Postmodern Perspectives, ed. A. Neuwirth, A. Pflitsch, and B. Winckler (London: Saqi Books, 2010), p.159.

2. Ibid., p.161.

3. S. Ibrahim, That Smell, and Notes from Prison, trans. R. Cresswell (New York: New Directions, 2013), p.15.

4. A. Amireh, ‘Review of The Representation of Women in a Selection of Modern Egyptian Literature’, World Literature Today, Vol.69 (4), p.860.

5. Ibrahim, That Smell, p.28.

6. Ibid., p.23.

7. Ibid., p.41.

8. Ibid., p.41.

9. Ibid., p.41.

10. C. Stone, ‘Georg Lukács and the Improbable Realism of Ṣun' Allah Ibrāhīm's “The Committee”’, Journal of Arabic Literature, Vol.41 (1/2) (2010), p.139.

11. Ibrahim, That Smell, p.29.

12. Ibid., p.29.

13. Ibid., p.29.

14. Ibid., p.30.

15. Ibid., p.48.

16. Ibid., p.49.

17. Ibid., p.49.

18. Ibid., p.49.

19. Ibid., p.33.

20. Ibid., p.34.

21. Ibid., p.32.

22. Ibid., p.34.

23. Ibid., p.33.

24. Ibid., p.34.

25. Ibid., p.31.

26. Ibid., p.32.

27. S. Guth ‘The Function of Sexual Passages in Some Egyptian Novels of the 1980s’ in Love and Sexuality in Modern Arabic Literature, ed. R. Allen, H. Kilpatrick, and E. de Moor (London: Saqi Books, 1995), p.127.

28. Ibrahim, That Smell, p.68.

29. Ibid., p.44.

30. S. Mehrez, Egyptian Writers between History and Fiction: Essays on Naguib Mahfouz, Sonallah Ibrahim, and Gamal Al-Ghitani (Cairo: American University in Cairo, 1994), p.45.

31. Mehrez, p.44.

32. Ibrahim, That Smell, p.44.

33. P. Starkey, ‘Heroes and Characters in the Novels of Sun'allah Ibrahim’, Middle Eastern Literatures, Vol.9 (2) (2006), p.148.

34. C.K. Draz ‘Opaque and Transparent Discourse in Sonallah Ibrahim's Works’ in The View from Within: Writers and Critics on Contemporary Arabic Literature, ed. Ferial J. Ghazoul and B. Harlow (Cairo: American University in Cairo, 1994), p.134.

35. Guth, p.129.

36. Ibrahim, That Smell, p.67.

37. Draz, p.135.

38. U. Stehli-Werbeck, ‘The Question of Identity and the Narrative Concept of Tilka Al-rā’iha by Sun'allāh Ibrāhīm’, Middle Eastern Literatures, Vol.9 (2) (2006), pp.137–46.

39. Ibrahim, That Smell, p.80.

40. Mehrez, p.51.

41. Draz, p.146.