A Reading in -Arab Women Writers: An Anthology Of Short Stories - - Part Seven

In this part of the anthology, we read eight short stories depicting many costumes in the Arab region, as well as the difference in between western and eastern values. The stories’ topics vary from honor killing, exploiting my stepmothers, living abroad, being virgin as well as the suffering of women in war regions.

In “Tears for sale” by the Palestinian author Samira Azzam, we read about the contradiction of a women working as a mourner for the dear and a beautician for brides at the same time. The whole story depicts the impressions told to us by a young child watching this woman’s behavior in both occasions “funerals and wedding parties”. Finally, we know how all these things were fake, and how the silent grief is the truest one, when the woman’s only daughter passed away in a typhoid epidemic-;- and all people went to see what would she do in her daughter’s funeral, but there was nothing of what she used to do. Others made fun of her that she did nothing because she was not to be paid for that.

In “Misfortune in the alley” by the Yemeni author Ramziya Abbas Al-Iryani, we read about the suffers of a little girl on the hands of her step-mother, and how she beat her, and fabricated stories on her, when she disappeared someday, and accused her of running away with a cab driver amid the gossip of the neighbors. The story depicts the negativity of the society, which does nothing to stop oppression, yet rush to push the father to punish his poor daughter. However, the girl appears at last bleeding because of her stepmother’s beating-;- still the father cares about nothing but that his honor is fine. The story depicts the poverty, and the side effects of qat consuming too in-dir-ectly.

In “Questioning” by the Bahraini author Fawziya Rashid, we read about the questions and memories of a little boy whose sister disappeared after a family quarrel on a night long ago. The boy got various explanations for his sister’s disappearance, but he did not reach the truth, which was that her family killed her in the so-called “honor-killing”. The story condemns this crime, and shows how the entire society kills people for something all people engage secretly.

In “The Dinosaur” by the Lebanese author Emily Nasrallah, we read about the cultural differences between the West and East, through a meeting between a refine Lebanese lady – a descendant of a village – and an American man at a dinner party, and we read how he found it strange that his second wife was virgin when he married her. All people found it strange in a shameful way for a woman in the 20th century. the Lebanese lady kept silent because she knew it is the opposite in her world. So, she went out to look for Marlene, the breed of women about to extinct in the west. I felt the story depicts a stereotype way of thinking.

In “Moonstuck” by the Iraqi author Hadiya Sa’id, we read on the life of an Iraqi immigrant in London, her passion with classical music, her eagerness to pursue her lost brother’s dream to be a musician, her memories of her village in northern Iraq. We read on the life of immigrants women from Italy, France, Slovakia and Iran in a flat in London. The story depicts the cultural variation between East and West as regards marriage and male-female relationships.

In “A moment of Truth” by the Saudi author Khayriyah Al-Saqqaf, we read a short mysterious texts with lots of metaphors about a man wearing the same clothes winter and summer, and always sits in the same chair, reading the same page of the same book, and the clock behind him notes to the same second, minute and hour. The woman in the story was curious to know the reason of his doing so all the time, she thought that men feel helpless when they discover their own philosophy and give up the life. The man died as he answered her questions for the first time-;- still he gave her no clue about his reasons.

In “The Future” by the Iraqi author Daisy Al-Amir, we read about the worries, fears, and guilt feelings of a woman buying a dress for the next spring´-or-autumn. She felt she is doing a crime because people were dying everywhere, experiencing hunger, when she went to buy a new dress. The entire atmosphere reminds us of Iraq nowadays, before we discover the fact that she is talking on Lebanon during the civil war. The story is touching, and let us thinks of the heavy burdens of wars-;- and how people lose the belief in the future, still keep clutching on it.

In “The Gallows” by the Jordanian author Suhayr Al-Tall, we read a short mysterious text depicting a city blurred with gelatinous liquid. The whole story is full of metaphors referring to men and women as two cities willing to annihilate each other, and the figure is just the penis and the gelatinous liquid is the semen. The story is short, and almost simple, but it led to the imprisonment of this Jordanian writer for months.

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