History, Vision and Narrative in Ahdaf Soueif's The Map of Love

InThe Map of Love, Ahdaf Soueif describes the liberation of the post-colonial subject as a palimpsest of competing claims, histories and painful dismemberments that cannot be separated from painful memories. She weaves post-colonial perspectives on history, memory and hybridity and writes a revisionist and contrapuntal history of Egypt. In this post-colonial novel, Soueif relates two cross-cultural love stories, which are set in different centuries, and structures them as doubles. The story of Anna Winterbourne and Sharif al-Baroudi passes in England and colonial Egypt after the Omdurman War (1898) and continues until 1913. The story of Isabel Parkman and Omar Ghamrawi takes place in contemporary Egypt and USA in 1997. Amal, sister of Omar, integrates the stories and acts as the author-character. In this historically dense novel, the story moves between colonial past and post-colonial present to emphasise overlapping histories, national insecurities and new forms of colonialism. 

___

  • Abu-Lughod, I. (1967). The transformation of the Egyptian elite: Prelude to the ”Urabi Revolt”. Middle East Journal, 3(21), 325-344. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 4324162.
  • Adawalla, M. (2011). Generational differences in three Egyptian women writers: Finding common ground. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 47(4), 440-453. doi: 10.1080/17449855.2011.590324.
  • Ahmed, L. (1992). Women and gender in Islam: Historical roots of a modern debate. London: Yale University Press.
  • Amar, P. (2011). Working out Egypt: Effendi Masculinity and subject formation in colonial modernity, 1870-1940. Social History, 4(36). doi: 10.1080/03071022.2011.620236.
  • Ashcroft, B. (2000). Post-colonial transformation (1st Edition/Ashcroft/p/book/9780203129814 ed.). Retrieved from https://www.routledge.com/Post-Colonial -Transformation.
  • Ashcroft, B., Griffits, G., & Tiffin, H. (2013). Postcolonial studies, the key concepts. Oxford: Routledge.
  • Boccardi, M. (2004). History as genealogy: A. S. Byatt, Tracy Chevalier, Ahdaf Soueif. Women: A Cultural Review, 2(15). doi: 10.1080/0957404042000234042.
  • Boccardi, M. (2009). The contemporary British historical novel, representation, nation and empire. Great Britain: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Boehmer, E. (2005). Colonial and postcolonial literature, migrant metaphors. Retrieved from https://global.oup.com/academic/product/colonial-and -postcolonial-literature-9780199253715?cc=tr&lang=en&.
  • Brandabur, A. C., & Athamneh, N. (2000). Problems of genre in the seven pillars of wisdom: A triumph. Comparative Literature, 4(52). Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/ stable/1771351.
  • Bulfin, A. (2011). The fiction of gothic Egypt and the British imperial paranoia: The curse of the Suez Canal. English Literature in Transition 1880-1920, 4(54), 411-443. Retrieved from http://muse.jhu.edu/article/445326 doi: 10.1080/02757200701218262.
  • Burke, E., & Prochaska, D. (2004). Rethinking the historical genealogy of orientalism. History and Anthropology, 2(18). doi: 10.1080/02757200701218262.
  • Cole, J. R. (1981). Feminism, class, and Islam in turn-of-the-century Egypt. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 4(13), 387-407. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/ stable/162906.
  • Crabbs, J. J. (1975). Politics, history, and culture in Nasser's Egypt. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 4(6), 386-420. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/162751.
  • D’Alessandro, S. (2011). Politics of representation in Ahdaf Soueif’s ”The Map of Love”. Bern: CHE, Peter Lang.
  • Eppel, M. (2009). Note about the term Effendiyya in the history of the Middle East. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 3(41), 535-539. Retrieved from http://www.jstor .org/stable/403892888.
  • EzzelArab, A. (2004). The experiment of Sharif Pasha’s cabinet (1879): An inquiry into the historiography of Egypt's elite movement. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 4(36), 561-589. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3880006.
  • Fandy, M. (2006). Political science without clothes: The politics of dress; or contesting the spatiality of the dress in Egypt. In I. A. al Azhary Sonbol (Ed.), Beyond the exotic: Women’s histories in Islamic societies (p. 381-398). Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press.
  • Hassan, W. S. (2006). Agency and translational literature: Ahdaf Soueif’s ”The Map of Love”. PMLA, 3(123), 753-768. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 25486352.
  • Hatem, M. F. (2006). The history of the discourses on gender and Islamism. In I. A. al Azhary Sonbol (Ed.), Beyond the Exotic: Women’s histories in Islamic societies (p. 307-321). Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press.
  • Heilmann, A., & Llewellyn, M. (2004). Historical fictions: Woman (Re)reading and (Re)writing history. Women: A Cultural Review, 2(15), 137-152. doi: 10.1080/0957404042000234006.
  • Hunter, F. R. (2004). Tourism and empire: The Thomas cook & son enterprise on the Nile, 1868- 1914. Middle Eastern Studies, 5(40), 28-54. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4289940.
  • Kahf, M. (2006). Packaging ”Huda”: Sha’rawi’s memoirs in the United States reception environment. In L. S. M. In Amal Amireh (Ed.), The transnational reception of third world women writers (p. 28-45). New York: Garland.
  • King, B. (2000). Review: Ahdaf Soueif. The Map of Love. World Literature Today, 2(75), 453. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40155793.
  • Malak, A. (2005). Muslim narratives and the discourse of English. Albany: State University of New York Press.
  • Maleh, L. A. (2009). Anglophone arab literature: An overview. In I. L. A. M. (Ed.), Arab voices in diaspora, critical perspectives on anglophone arab literature (p. 1-63). Amsterdam: Rodopi.
  • Mehta, B. J. (2009). The semiosis of food in Diana Abu Jaber’s Crescent. In I. L. A. M. (Ed.), Arab voices in diaspora, critical perspectives on anglophone arab literature (p. 203-235). Amsterdam: Rodopi.
  • Nash, G. P. (2009). From harem to harvard: Cross-cultural memoir in Leila ahmed’s a border passage. In I. L. A. M. (Ed.), Arab voices in diaspora, critical perspectives on anglophone arab literature (p. 351-370). Amsterdam: Rodopi.
  • Pollard, L. (2006). Learning gendered modernity: The home, the family and the schoolroom in the construction of Egyptian national identity. In I. A. al Azhary Sonbol (Ed.), Beyond the exotic: Women’s histories in Islamic societies (p. 249-269). Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press.
  • Reid, D. M. (1982). Political assassination in Egypt, 1910-1954. The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 15(4), 625-651. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/ stable/217848.
  • Said, E. W. (1994). Culture and imperialism. London: Vintage Books.
  • Said, E. W. (2003). Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.
  • Soueif, A. (2004). Mezzaterra: Fragments from the common ground. London: Bloomsbury.
  • Soueif, A. (2007). The map of love. London: Bloomsbury.
  • Valassopoulos, A. (2004). Fictionalizing post-colonial theory: The creative native informant? Critical Survey, 2(16), 28-44. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 41557270.
  • Young, R. J. C. (2005). Colonial desire, hybridity in theory, culture and race. Retrieved from https://www.routledge.com/Colonial-Desire-Hybridity-in-Theory-Culture-and-Race/Young/p/book/9780415053747.