ABSTRACT
In recent years a set of novels written in Arabic has been published, novels that have a homosexual character as the main hero/heroine. This kind of novel has had, and still enjoys, great success among the Arabic-speaking readership as well as among its Western counterparts. When the novels first appeared in the bookstores, they were, on the one hand, the object of public debate in newspapers, on TV shows, and in media in general, while on the other they were often acclaimed as “the first Arabic novel on homosexuality” or “the unveiling of a taboo.” Reviewers on both sides discussed the issue, failing to read them through a diffraction lens, i.e., inserting them in a context and trying to analyze the relations they build in a complex society and the real effect they have on the public perception of LGTB issues. This chapter presents some of these novels, inserting them in a sociopolitical frame. It aims to answer the following questions: do these novels represent the voice of a social group? Or are they a single event in a female/male writer production? In which way do they insert themselves in a discourse on homosexuality in the Arab world? How are they received in the West? Is there a public standpoint from Arab speaking writers on the issue? The aim of the chapter is to try to articulate an analysis instead of simply describe, and to diffract the different discourses engendered by these novels into different levels: the one related with the West, where Arab culture today is used to redefine the role of women in our countries; the one related with the Arab world, where “sexual deviance” is used to present a woman’s model, which is traditional and functional to a deeply repressive political strategy; the one of the Academy, where queer (literary) Arabic studies are confined within the study of the Middle Ages.
