A Mountainous Journey: Palestinian Women’s Writings and Justice
In her autobiography, Rihla Jabaliyya, Rihla Sa’ba (A Mountainous Journey: A Poet’s Autobiography), the Palestinian poet Fadwa Tuqan (1917-2003) narrates her journey of becoming one of the most famous female Palestinian poets. Through a critical eye, and with a high knowledge of the outer world and its literature, Tuqan expresses dismissal of gender segregation that she and her female relatives faced as part of an elite Palestinian class. The consequences of her “house arrest”, as she showcases, led to her lack of a political identity, and a delay in writing political poetry. This paper analyzes Fadwa Tuqan’s Rihla with a focus on Palestinian women’s role in writing Palestinian history, especially during political upheavals, as they confront a patriarchal society, and live under settler-colonial Occupation. Tuqan’s work, as will be argued, shows how equality and justice between Palestinian men and women leads to a better and a more-aware society that is capable of representing itself, as well as a society that is more attune to political freedom and its demands. Through her poetry, and later her autobiography, Tuqan demonstrates how literature can become a tool for social change, and how political agency is contingent upon literary creativity and freedom of expression. This paper uses a critical post/colonial look that acknowledges the focus on self-representation and the critique of society, and recognizes the importance of education and literature in gaining justice for the individual as well as the collective, especially in the Middle East.
Laila Shakiki is a PhD Candidate at St. John’s University.
Forms of Justice 