Sheherazade in the
West
(Sheherzadian
Narrative)
DR. SOMAYA SAMI
EN503
Sheherazadian Narrative:
The Representation of the Oriental
woman represents a particularly
contested terrain in relation to
colonialism.
She represents a space upon which
many prejudices and preconceptions
Orientalist paintings testify to this
The literary writings and performances
of contemporary Arab-American
women have become an arena of
resistance to such Orientalist discursive
practices

Arab women living in the diaspora
and Arab-American women writers
in particular explore the tensions
governing affiliations to nation, the
problems shaping markers of
collective identity and the outlines of
race-thinking shaping their lives.

Through novel, poetry, one-woman
shows and stand-up comedy
relating their identity to a dispersed
spectrum of Arab-American
identities
Diasporic Literature:

The literature written by a group of people
who come from a particular nation or
whose ancestors come from a particular
nation. Diaspora as a phenomenon can
be a result of forced migration (ex
Palestine) or voluntary migration
(Morocco)

The writers of diaspora open up rigid
categories of collective identity

The reasons behind resistance are linked
to their representations and translations
into mainstream American culture

These women resist attempts to fix their
identities through the revival of the
narrative techniques of the storyteller of
the Arabian Nights

To express themselves artistically they are constantly processing new
experiences and representations (of new homeland) and
understand them in the context of an (other homeland)

They in the process challenge a prevailing exotic/oppressed
“Oriental” woman’s image
Narrative as a translational and
cultural linking device:

A different human capacity that grounds our sharing: namely, the
grasp of a narrative logic that allows us to construct the world to
which our imaginations respond […] the basic human capacity to
grasp stories, even strange stories, is also what links us, powerfully, to
others, even strange others. (Appiah 257)

Appiah suggests here that a cultural translation unhampered by
power politics can become possible through sharing our common
capacity to grasp stories

Sheherazadian narrative becomes the means through which the
complexities of negotiating identity in contrast to mainstream
representations (exotic-oppressed)

The Sheherzadian narrative becomes a space of cultural production
and cultural negotiation

It is the non-totalitarian space where the many lives we have lived
and are living intermingle

To resist the stereotyping which deprives a people of their humanity
these Arab-American writers assume the role of cultural translators
and place upon themselves the responsibility of telling their own tale

Shahriyar in their tales is a shifting entity of Orientalist processes and
institutionalized racism

As they negotiate their affiliations, they dance on the hyphen of
their identities performing the nation
E-Mails From Scheherazade
Mohja Kahf

Mohja Kahf is a first generation Arab-American poet and novelist
who was born in Damascus, Syria and came to the US as a child

In addition to the iconic characters immortalised in cartoons and on
the silver screen, Scheherazad conjures up a host of strong female
characters; beautiful and erudite queens, clever and quick witted
slave girls, and resourceful if impoverished widows. But where are
those heroines now? In much the same way as the cuckolded King
Shahryar saw only treachery and infidelity in his brides, so the
Western media perpetuates stereotypes of veiled women as
'domesticated, subjugated and unenlightened' (Abdelrazek 2007)
E-mails From Scheherazad

Kahf published her book of poetry in 2003

The poems summarize the culturally hybrid experiences of ArabAmerican women though Scheherazad does not appear directly in
all of these poems her character brings together the experiences
described in the poems

There are two poems however which directly hail the Arab storyteller
“E-mail from Scheherzad” and “So You Think You Know Scheherzad”
So You Think You Know
Scheherazad (2000)
So you think you know Scheherzad
So you think she tells you bedtime stories
That will please and soothe,
Invents fairy creatures
Who will grant you wishes
Scheherzad invents nothing
Scheherzad awakens
The demons under your bed
They were always there
She locks you in with them
And when you struggle to escape from them
And when you run
To the very end of the corridor, you find
That it leads only to another corridor
And every door you open is a false door
And suddenly you find yourself in a room
Within a room within a room within a room
And suddenly you find yourself forced to meet them,
The demons she unleashes,
The terrors that come from
Within you and within her
And suddenly Scheherazad is nowhere to be found
But the stories she unlocked go on and on
This is the power of the telling of a story--And suddenly you find yourself
Swimming through the sea to the Reef of Extremity,
Flying to the Valley of All That Is Possible,
Walking barefoot on a blade
Over the Chasm of Flames,
Landing in a field where you wrestle with Iblis,
Whose form changes into your lover,
Into Death, into knowledge, into God,
Whose face changes into Scheherzad—
And suddenly you find yourself.