Classes of Ladies of Cloistered Spaces - by Marilyn Booth (Paperback)

About the Book

Explores the writing and influence of the first Arabic-language global biographical dictionary of women.

Book Synopsis

Zaynab Fawwaz (c.1860-1914) was as a forceful voice in support of women's rights to education and work choices in colonial-era Egypt. Her volume of 453 women's lives, al-Durr al-manthur fi tabaqat rabbat al-khudur (Pearls scattered in times and places: Classes of ladies of cloistered spaces, 1893-6) - featuring Boudicca, Catherine the Great, Zaynab (the granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad), Victoria Woodhull, the Turkish poet Sirri Hanim and many others - built on the Arabic-Islamic biographical tradition to produce a work for women in the modern era, grafting European, Turkish, Arab, and Indian life narratives, amongst others onto Arabic literary patterns
In Classes of Ladies of Cloistered Spaces Marilyn Booth argues that Fawwaz's work was less 'exemplary biography' than feminist history, in its exploration of achievement but also of patriarchal trauma in the lives of women across times and places. She traces Fawwaz's creative use of her sources, her presentation of biographical narratives in the context of the political essays she wrote in the Arabic press, her publicised dialogue with the President of the Board of Lady Managers of the 1893 World Columbian Exposition - where she attempted to send the volume - and how her inscription of a feminine ancient history diverged from that of men writing history in 1890s Egypt.

From the Back Cover

'Marilyn Booth is to be lauded for her careful and sophisticated analysis of Zaynab Fawwaz's biographical work Scattered Pearls. This masterful study will be read with avid interest by all those who are interested in the holistic history of fin-de-siècle Egypt that includes both men's and women's voices and in exploring its larger contemporary implications.' Asma Afsaruddin, Professor of Islamic Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington Explores the writing and influence of the first Arabic-language global biographical dictionary of women Zaynab Fawwaz (c.1860-1914) was a forceful voice in support of women's rights to education and work choices in colonial-era Egypt. Her volume of 453 women's lives, al-Durr al-manthur fi tabaqat rabbat al-khudur (Pearls scattered in times and places: classes of ladies of cloistered spaces), was published between 1893 and 1896. It featured Boudicca, Catherine the Great, Zaynab (granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad), Victoria Woodhull, the Turkish poet Sirri Hanim and many others. Building on the Arabic-Islamic biographical tradition, it produced a work for women in the modern era, grafting European, Turkish, Arab and Indian life narratives, amongst others, onto Arabic literary patterns. In Cloistered Ladies Marilyn Booth argues that Fawwaz's work was less 'exemplary biography' than feminist history, in its exploration of achievement but also of what Booth labels patriarchal trauma in the lives of women across times and places. She traces Fawwaz's creative use of her sources, her presentation of biographical narratives in the context of the political essays she wrote in the Arabic press, her publicised dialogue with the President of the Board of Lady Managers of the 1893 World Columbian Exposition - where she attempted to send the volume - and how her inscription of a feminine ancient history diverged from that of men writing history in 1890s Egypt. Key Features: - Includes descriptions of biographies of women from the US, Britain, Europe, India and the Maldives, as well as the Middle East (Iran, Turkey and the Arab world) - Presents Fawwaz's dictionary as a key text in the debates on gender and national efficacy in 1890s Egypt and Ottoman Syria - Closely examines issues of text circulation and borrowing - Argues that Fawwaz's book can be regarded as 'feminist history' Marilyn Booth is Khalid bin Abdullah Al Saud Professor of the Study of the Contemporary Arab World, University of Oxford. She has published monographs on exemplary biography in the Arabic women's press and vernacular writing in Egypt, and she is editor of Harem Histories (2011) and co-editor of The Long 1890s in Egypt (Edinburgh University Press, 2014). Cover image: Mashrabiyya, Cairo, 2012 (c) Marilyn Booth Cover design: [EUP logo] www.euppublishing.com ISBN 978-0-7486-9486-0 Barcode

Review Quotes

Marilyn Booth is to be lauded for her careful and sophisticated analysis of Zaynab Fawwaz's biographical work Scattered Pearls. Thanks to her masterful study, Fawwaz and her literary production can now be recognized as constituting an important piece in the shaping of a 'colonial modernity' in the Arab world in the late nineteenth century and signaling an emerging Muslim feminist consciousness at this time. This important work will be read with avid interest by all those who are interested in the holistic history of fin-de-siècle Egypt that includes both men's and women's voices and in exploring its larger contemporary implications.-- "Asma Afsaruddin, Professor of Islamic Studies, Indiana University"

About the Author

Marilyn Booth is Khalid bin Abdallah Al Saud Professor for the Study of the Contemporary Arab World, University of Oxford. Her most recent monograph, The Career and Communities of Zaynab Fawwaz: Feminist Thinking in Fin-de-siècle Egypt (2021), is amongst numerous publications on early feminism, translation, and Arabophone women's writing in Egypt and Ottoman Syria. Initiator of the Ottoman Translation Studies Group, she edited Migrating Texts: Circulating Translations around the Ottoman Mediterranean (Edinburgh University Press, 2019). Translator of eighteen published works of fiction and memoir from the Arabic, she was co-winner of the 2019 Man Booker International Prize for her translation of Jokha Alharthi's Celestial Bodies.