Feminist Traditions in Andalusi-Moroccan Oral Narratives - by H Lebbady (Hardcover)

About the Book

This book introduces seven Andalusi-Moroccan women s tales, analyzes them from literary theoretical perspectives, and reveals them to be vitally feminist. These tales were collected in Tetouan in northern Morocco and few have ever been translated into English. The protagonists, typically Muslim women, come across as being particularly eloquent and capable of outwitting the men in their lives, who tend to be princes and Sultans. Lebbady delves into the structural and thematic features of the tales and draws parallels to the European courtly love tradition. "

Book Synopsis

In this volume, Lebbady has compiled and translated seven Andalusi women's tales from the north of Morocco, and analyzes them from a postcolonial theoretical perspective, finding in the women far more wit and agency than western stereotypes would suggest.

Review Quotes

"There is no mistaking the high degree of critical intelligence which is evident throughout this thoroughly well-informed book. Present everywhere is aesthetic sensibility joined to theoretical awareness. For anyone working on oral narratives, memory, cultural translation, subalterneity and feminism, Lebbady's Feminist Traditions in Andalusi-Moroccan Oral Narratives provides an essential point of reference." - Taieb Belghazi, Professor of Critical and Cultural Theory, and Director of the Center for Doctoral Studies, Rabat University

"A wonderful and detailed illumination of Andalusian oral literature and its importance in history - from the Inquisition onwards. Lebbady excavates the richness of feminine culture in Tetouan, delineating the important political roles that women played there and contextualizing the tales in the larger corpus of Andalusian song. Lebbady s book is an important contribution to feminist scholarship, as well as to studies of oral literature in North Africa and elsewhere. Indeed, Lebbady is a masterful translator of the tales she tells." - Deborah Kapchan, author of Traveling Spirit Masters: Moroccan Gnawa Trance and Music in the Global Marketplace

About the Author

HASNA LEBBADY is Professor and Head of the Department of English at the Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco.