ABSTRACT
Saudi Women Writers: Sociopolitical and Literary Landscapes examines the influence of the religious narrative saḥwa on women’s fiction. It first addresses the challenge of reconciling local and Western discourses and the dual struggle faced by women writers in expressing themselves freely. Roland Barthes’ notion of ‘punctum’, in reference to the saḥwa, serves as a point of memory that, despite being personal, intersects with layers of cultural and historical significance. This concept helps to expose the unexpected, ‘rendering it visible for the reader’. The book uses the term ‘transversal’ in reference to women’s texts, to describe identity and resistance in women’s marginal discourse and the alliance created in this space between art and social, political and activist practices. It also employs the concept of ‘counter memory’, which aims to resist and challenge the dominant ‘master narrative’ discourse. Other conceptional theories include intersectional feminism, gender, and sociopolitical theories, providing a comprehensive analysis of the multilayered discourse present in women’s texts.
