Fadia Faqir: A Voice for Arab Women

Jordanian writer Fadia Faqir’s works are deeply embedded in her experiences as a woman in Arabic culture. At the same time, she transcends cultural boundaries by giving voice to the women and immigrants who are marginalised in all societies.

In a 2007 interview in The Guardian, Faqir spoke of her experience of refusing to wear a veil. Whilst in the West the wearing of the veil has become a highly politicised issue, one which engages with issues such as multiculturalism and religious tolerance, as well as the rights of women, Faqir shifted the debate from political abstraction to deeply personal reflection. For her, relinquishing the veil was a calculated choice to separate from her father, and deny his authority over her. Only much later would they be reconciled. Although the question of the veil is largely specific to Arab cultures, the inter-generational divisions that threaten familial relationships is not.

Likewise, although her novels are rooted in the Arabic diasporic experience, the central theme that links together her stories is neither cultural nor geographic, but rather the marginalised people in society, particularly women. Although she is Jordanian, Faqir is first and foremost a spokeswoman for the woman of the Arab world who are linked by their shared experiences in a cultural landscape that remains largely patriarchal. Faqir's own experiences as a woman writer born in Jordan before emigrating and settling in Britain are deeply embedded in her works which give them the immediacy of a memoir.


In My Name is Salma, her third novel, the eponymous narrator wanders through England as an immigrant who seeks to reinvent herself in the Western mould; her references range from Bedouin tribal conflicts in the Levant to cream teas in Exeter. Through the non-linear unfolding of Salma's story, the reader grows to realise that straddling these two worlds is no easy matter. Although on the surface Salma - or Sally as she names her re-invented self - embraces the liberated veneer of Western society, she is torn by the incongruity  between the Western and Arab cultures which have made her who she is. As her story unwinds, the circumstances for her departure from Bedouin life to face the hardships of a new country are revealed. Rather than simply the critiquing the immigrant experience, Faqir's novel exposes the injustices and prejudices rooted in tradition that run through both Arabic and Western societies, and reveals the way in which marginalised people become victims of these prejudices.


Faqir is also the author of Nisanit and Pillars of Salt. Her fourth novel At the Midnight Kitchen is due to be published soon.