1.

Introduction
[I am] like hundreds of thousands of others: people with an Arab or a Muslim background doing
daily double-takes when faced with their reflection in a western mirror. (Soueif 2004)

Born in Egypt, as the child of two Arab university professors, Ahdaf Soueif is an author who fuses
elements from an English education and society with aspects from her Cairene milieu in her fictional
and nonfictional writings. Several years of Soueifs childhood were spent in London, where she was
able to explore the Anglophone literary scene whilst embracing her Egyptian roots through the
culture of her parents. Ahdaf Soueif is the product from a dual Eastern and Western upbringing, a
life characterized by a mixture of different cultures which is commonly linked in postcolonial studies
with hybrid identity. According to Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin, hybridity is one of the most widely
employed and most disputed terms in post-colonial theory, [which] commonly refers to the creation
of new transcultural forms within the contact zone produced by colonization (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and
Tiffin 1998: 118). Many literary analyses of novels produced in the era following colonial occupation
focus on how two or more cultures fuse and how the characters in these stories attempt to negotiate
the differences that come along with such a merger, a pattern which is also followed in Ahdaf
Soueifs In the Eye of the Sun (1992)and The Map of Love (1999). Homi K. Bhabha describes this
process, known as hybridity, as the creation of culture and identity from the blending of cultural
elements of the colonizer and the colonized, thereby defying the origins of any authentic identity
(Bhabha 1990). Authors situated in this postcolonial era move between different worlds, trying to
merge diverse cultures. This fusion of different cultures has led these postcolonial writers to a
coalition of different reading audiences, which has exposed them to different levels of apprehension
and appreciation.

Analyzing the high level of hybridity in Soueifs personal life, one might expect that a similar interest
in transcultural elements will be detected when reading her fictional and non-fictional work. Ahdaf
Soueif has written several articles on political and cultural affairs that shape the contemporary world,
such as The Heart of the Matter (2007) that deals with the troubles in Palestine in a present-day
context. In 2004, she published a book entitled Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground,
which contains a collection of non-fictional essays on significant matters that are linked with the
Mezzaterra in a globalized world. As a recipient of two different cultures, Ahdaf Soueif is engaged
in making different cultural grounds meet throughout her writings, or as Soueif herself describes it, in
exploring the Mezzaterra, which refers to the construction of a meeting point for diverse cultures
and traditions, a common ground. This mutual ground is not competitive, rather it offers an
enrichment working at both sides of the construction.

Ahdaf Soueif herself describes the common ground as followed:

[The Mezzaterra is] a territory imagined, created even, by Arab thinkers and reformers starting in the
middle of the nineteenth century when Muhammad Ali Pasha of Egypt first sent students to the West
and they came back inspired by the best of what they saw on offer. Generations of Arabs protected it
through the dark time of colonialism. (Soueif, qtd. in Mahjoub 2009: 57)
The Mezzaterra constitutes a space where the best elements of different cultures are combined
and where admiration for the thought, literature and music of the West is accompanied by
confidence in the possibilities of an Egyptian culture, free from colonial occupation. Ahdaf Soueifs
strong belief in this unity of East and West is accompanied by a high level of hybridity, a model
which she explores in her writings as well as in her personal life. For instance, in naming her
offspring, Soueif illustrates her interest in merging two cultures since her sons have combined Arab-
English names, namely Omar Robbie and Ismail Ricki (Darraj 2003: 91). She challenges
transcultural issues in her fictional novels while she also writes non-fictional articles for English
newspaper The Guardian as well as for Egypts esteemed newspaper Al-Ahram. Her fictional and
her non-fictional writings epitomize her dual identity, the fact that she is the product of a cross-
cultural upbringing, therefore making her a prime example of a hybrid writer. However, this high level
of hybridity in her personal life has led her to be perceived as a writer who does not belong
exclusively to Egypt or England. Soueif is frequently regarded as a foreigner by the English, while
she is oftentimes denied the status of a native Egyptian (Darraj 2003: 92). Susan Darraj, who has
written articles on Arab-Muslim feminism and Muslim writers, claims that Soueifs lush style is often
described as exotic and foreign by her Western readers, while her sexual imagery and themes
arouse the ire of some Egyptian readers who do not want to claim her as one of their own (Darraj
2003: 91), which explains the perception of Ahdaf Soueif as an outsider by both sides. In an
interview, Soueif addressed the confrontational issue of hybridity by claiming that there are so many
hybrids now, people who are a little bit of this and a little bit of that. The interesting thing is what we
make of it, what kind of hybrid we become and how we feel about it (Soueif, qtd. in Malak 2003:
148). Ahdaf Soueif seems to have found a space, despite the fact that she does not belong
exclusively to either the Eastern or the Western literary circuit, which allows her to harmonize both
her Egyptian and English roots. However, she admits that some voices in our contemporary world do
not share her belief in the common ground, as she claims that: [i]n today's world, separatism is not
an option. In order to stay alive we will all eventually end up on some form of common ground.
However, the loudest voices that are heard are those that deny the existence of this, who shout that
a clash of civilizations is taking place (Soueif 2004, translated from KVS Express 2008).

Ahdaf Soueif was launched onto the international scene by her first novel In the Eye of the Sun
(1992), which tells the story of a young Egyptian girl who finds herself trapped in an unhappy
marriage and who seeks intellectual and marital freedom in England. In addition to this first novel,
Soueif has also published two short-stories compellations, Aisha (1983)and Sandpiper(1996), and a
second novel, The Map of Love (1999). While Soueifs first novel takes a young Arab woman out of
the heart of Egypt and transports her to England, her second novel reverses the pattern and
narrates how an Arab woman tries to puzzle together the life story of her great-aunt, an English
Victorian lady who traveled to the East and started a second life in the harem. In my thesis I will
focus on Ahdaf Soueifs novels In the Eye of the Sun (1992) and The Map of Love (1999) and
investigate whether the authors strong belief in the Mezzaterra and in hybridity, which has
characterized her life, is also explored and therefore detectable in her novels. I have chosen these
novels because both books narrate stories about young women who are moving between Egypt and
England, or East and West, and the struggles they encounter when trying to merge different
cultures. A comparative study of both books will expose how Ahdaf Soueif deals with the effects of
her dynamic upbringing and identity in her fictional writings. This analysis will be preceded by a
discussion of the existing body of academic theories on the topic of hybridity in postcolonial studies.
In my analysis of In the Eye of the Sun and The Map of Love, I will focus on hybridity, and more
specifically on the merger of Western and Eastern elements, by exploring the following research
questions: (a) Which formal, textual elements of In the Eye of the Sun and The Map of Love display
Ahdaf Soueifs belief in the Mezzaterra and, more specifically, hybridity? (b) Which components on
the level of content suggest that Ahdaf Soueif inserts the notion of hybridity into the lives and
interests of the characters in her novels? (c) How does Ahdaf Soueif deal with traditional views
concerning East and West? (c) What future does she describe for hybrids living in our contemporary,
globalized world? At the end, a conclusion will be drafted and the initially asked questions will
hopefully have been answered in detail.

2. Theoretical Concepts, Novels and Genres

2.1 The Postcolonial Matter Ahdaf Soueif as a
Postcolonial Writer
Critics have argued that Ahdaf Soueif is both an essayist of non-fictional articles and author of
fictional stories who displays in her writings a great interest in the merger of different cultures in
places characterized by a colonial past. As mentioned earlier, her nonfictional work has illustrated
her belief in the Mezzaterra, a common ground for these cultures where they can live harmoniously
and people can benefit from this productive merger. Soueifs fictional writings have been identified
by critics such as Susan Muaddi Darraj (2003) and Emily Davis (2007) as postcolonial literature, by
claiming that she reshapes, rethinks and re-evaluates the colonial period in the Middle East (Darraj
2003: 102). The definition of postcolonial is not without contradictions. Ama Ata Aidoo, who also
writes articles and books on Western-Eastern tensions, claims that the post in postcolonial implies
that colonization is over and this is not true, because the regions which have a colonial history are
still in the process of decolonizing today, whether in economic, political, or cultural arenas []
(Aidoo qtd. in Katrak 2006: xii). Within the framework of this thesis I would like to follow Aidoos line
of thought which echoes the approach of Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin who argue that the process of
colonization does not cease with the mere end of political independence [rather it] continues in a
neo-colonial mode to be active in many societies (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin 1995: xv). The
problematic naming of notions relating to colonization and postcolonial literature proves that there is
still much controversy and incongruity among theorists. In the purpose of this thesis, I would like to
follow Ketu H. Katraks personal definition of postcolonial areas which she utilizes in her book
Politics of the Female Body: Postcolonial Women Writers of the Third World (2006). She describes
postcolonial areas as:

geopolitical regions that share a past a colonial history of occupation and domination and a
present of continuing neocolonialism that necessitates active decolonizing strategies. Neither the
colonial nor the postcolonial world is a given historically and geographically; these regions were
deliberately named as such through histories of conquest and domination, of nations and national
boundaries drawn often arbitrarily by colonizers. (Katrak 2006: xii)

The significance of this discussion of the notion postcolonial can be explained by Adhaf Soueifs
exploration of places characterized by colonization, either by narrating the lives of characters living
during Englands occupation of Egypt or by placing them in our contemporary world, which is faced
with the effects of its colonial past, a process oftentimes associated with globalization.

Some of Soueifs characters experience the direct effects of colonization while other witnesses are
set in a postcolonial era. The question which Soueif tries to answer is whether Egypt has liberated
itself from colonial occupation after it gained independence. In my opinion, Soueif condemns
Western occupation of her native country, but simultaneously expresses admiration for the thought
and culture of the West in her fictional novels, an act which illustrates her belief in a common ground
where cultures co-exist.

2.2 Theoretical Frame and Concepts

2.2.1 The Issue of Hybridity - Homi K. Bhabha
Authors like Ahdaf Soueif, Andrea Levy and Zadie Smith, who are characterized as writers of
postcolonial fiction, often narrate the stories of people that are confronted with the merger of different
cultures and the creation of hybrid identities. This means that they have to find a way to combine an
authentic identity with elements from a new culture. The creation of such a hybrid identity that
acknowledges and values the fusion of elements emanating from different cultures proves to be a
significant notion in In the Eye of the Sun (1992) and The Map of Love(1999). Vital attributions on
the issue of hybridity have been brought to the field of postcolonial theory by Homi K. Bhabha, a
postcolonial critic and accomplished essayist who has published articles on fundamental notions in
cultural studies, such as identity, race and colonialism (Rutherford 1990: 207). These concepts have
brought him to the discussion of some matters of contention which have proven to be cause for
confusion and misunderstanding in cultures characterized by a (post)colonial history.

Homi K. Bhabha argues that many of our contemporary globalized, plural societies acknowledge the
idea of diversity of cultures as a positive thing, so that cultural multiplicity is encouraged and
established. However, he attacks the tendency of Western peoples, who consider themselves to be
the cultured or civilized, to understand and locate cultures in a universal time-frame that
acknowledges their various historical and social contexts only eventually to transcend them and
render them transparent (Bhabha 1990: 208). This way, Western societies continue to believe that
nationalities and cultures which are different from their own are interesting enough to explore, but
are, eventually, their minors in civility, knowledge and cultivation. Bhabha finds in this contradictory
attitude two significant problems that concern the problematic issues of superiority feelings and
racism (Bhabha 1990: 208). The first problem relates to the superiority approach of the already
cultured to newcomers, who, therefore, will always retain the status of immigrants or outsiders.
Despite the fact that multiple societies proclaim encouraging exclamations which seem to applaud
and respect cultural diversity, there is, according to Bhabha, always an additional suppression of the
other culture. He claims that the host society or dominant culture constitutes a norm in which
other cultures are welcomed, however, they must be located within their own grid (Bhabha 1990:
208). This can be illustrated by the traditional Western view on Arab women who are wearing the
veil. Many Western people do not know the history of this Arab cultural element but only see it as a
manner of gender oppression, therefore they condemn it. Leila Ahmed, who has written several
essays on the topic of Orientalist stereotyping in the West, claims that the veil is more than anything
a symbol of women separated from the world of men, and this is conventionally perceived in the
West as oppression (Ahmed 1982: 523). For this reason but also for other religious and political
arguments, Arab women living in the West are oftentimes denied the opportunity to wear a veil, they
must adjust to Western manners of convention. People with an Eastern background who migrate to
the West must adapt or they will be excluded from society. What we can witness in our
contemporary world is an ambivalent attitude towards globalization which justifies diversity but
simultaneously denies some cultures the right of equality. The second problem which Bhabha
attacks, focuses upon racism, a problematic issue often encountered in multicultural societies
(Bhabha 1990: 208). Fear for something new and unfamiliar oftentimes entails an aggressive and
degrading attitude towards newcomers. As opposed to centuries ago, the current population of a
particular country is no longer characterized by a single people with solitary beliefs because
globalization has opened the gate of one country to the rest of the world, facilitating an exposure to
other cultures.

While Ahdaf Soeif is encouraged to write about an imaginative space where different cultures come
together to live harmoniously with each other, Bhabha denies the possibility of such an effortless or
peaceful act. He claims that cultures that adhere in a contemporary context are often radical
opponents on the field of political principles, religious conventions, sexual orientations and other
significant cultural issues (Bhabha 1990: 208). Following this reasoning, the necessity for a politics
which is based on unequal, uneven, multiple and potentially antagonistic, political identities has to
be realized to answer the [changing] nature of the public sphere (Bhabha 1990: 208). Homi K.
Bhabha argues that societies in a contemporary, postcolonial context should not try to reshape
newcomers to their own model, since it will be more satisfactory to focus on a merger where cultural
differences can co-exist.

To further support his claim, Homi K. Bhabha introduces the notion of the Third Space (Bhabha
1990: 211), an imaginative space which functions as a meeting point for opposite powers which do
not attempt to reach cultural domination. This contact zone, which Bhabha describes, is not
achieved through a serene fusion of elements from different cultures, rather it is constructed by
contradictory, and oftentimes, irreconcilable notions. According to him, the act of merging different
cultures and pretending that they can live side by side harmoniously is impossible and oftentimes
counterproductive. Bhabha further explains that:

[a]ll forms of culture are continually in a process of hybridity. But for me the importance of hybridity is
not to be able to trace two original moments from which the third emerges, rather hybridity to me is
the third space which enables other positions to emerge. This third space displaces the histories
that constitute it, and sets up new structures of authority, new political initiatives, which are
inadequately understood through received wisdom. (Bhabha 1990: 211)

A key notion for peoples anchored in this hybrid construction of the Third Space is the quest for an
identity which does not acknowledge only one authentic culture, but which is constituted by the
inclusion of new cultural elements. The original and separated identities are no longer significant,
since the new, hybrid identity has replaced them. Critics claim that the notion of hybridity has often
been used in postcolonial theories to refer to cross-cultural exchange (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin
1995: 119), however, this use has to be criticized, since it neglects the discrepancy that joins the
merger of different cultures. When discussing the quest for a hybrid individuality, Bhabha gives his
preference to the notion of identification instead of identity, since the former relates to the act of
identifying with and through another object, an object of otherness (Bhabha 1990: 211). Identity
has to do with myself, identification has to do with the Other and myself. Bhabha describes this
process of cultural hybridity as the stimulator of something new and unrecognizable, a new area of
negotiation of meaning and representation (Bhabha 1990: 211).

Michaela Wolf, who is inspired by the many theories on hybridity, describes Bhabhas Third Space
as a sort of in-between-space, which is located between existing referential systems and
antagonisms, [] [in which] the whole body of resistant hybridization comes into being in the form of
fragile syncretisms, contrapuntal re-combinations and acculturation (Wolf 2008: 13). However, she
finds in Bhabhas approach to hybridity a controversial boundary, since the name implies a plurality
of cultures, which automatically incorporates concepts of inclusion and exclusion (Wolf 2008: 14), a
process which is for instance often linked with the issue of language. Globalization is an ongoing
development which merges diverse cultures and therefore enables exposure to new and different
languages. As a result, minority languages might disappear while others find a growing number of
speakers. In the case of (post)colonial literature, the act of translation may prove to be a problematic
issue for the people involved. In her novels, Ahdaf Soueif exposes a great interest in the issue of
language, by allowing her characters to shift between the English and Arab language whilst
continually drawing attention to the problematic act of translation.

2.2.2 Orientalism - Edward Said

When discussing the importance of language and the issue of stereotyping in hybrid writings that
deal with Eastern-Western oppositions, it is important to refer to Edward Said and his work
Orientalism (1978). Said described the theory of Orientalism in his book as a way of looking at the
East that can be regarded as a manner of regularized writing, vision, and study, dominated by
imperatives, perspectives, and ideological biases ostensibly suited to the Orient (Said 1978: 202).
More specifically, it refers to the superiority approach of the West which dominates, restructures and
holds authority over the Orient. The Orient is not an inert fact of nature, but a phenomenon
constructed by generations of intellectuals, artists, commentators, writers, politicians, and, more
importantly, constructed by the naturalizing of a wide range of Orientalist assumptions and
stereotypes (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin 1998: 168). In summary, colonialists depicted the Orient
as an exotic and immoral place in urgent need of Western civilization, therefore Orientalism enforced
the colonial mission. Said was one of the first academics to study colonialism on the field of
discourse, and therefore showed the close interaction between the language and the forms of
knowledge developed for the study of cultures and the history of colonialism and imperialism
(Young 2007: 1). Saids theoretical approach to colonial literature implemented the understanding of
acts practiced in colonial times by analyzing accounts in literary texts, travel writings and memoirs.
He concluded that the language used in those reports to analyze or represent colonialism was not
purely instrumental. Said argued that Orientalism developed as a construction on the discursive
field, so that the language in which colonization is represented, is never unbiased, neutral or
objective. Furthermore, Orientalism is a political doctrine willed over the Orient because the Orient
was weaker than the West, which elided the Orients difference with its weakness (Said 1978: 203).
This significant approach to Orientalism defies traditional academic views upon the representation of
colonization in Western literature. Saids theory claims that in these texts, the written accounts on
the Orient only depicted Western desires which envisioned the East as an exotic place, therefore
Orientalism bore little evidence to the authenticity of its object. So the Orient is not an actual place,
rather it is a "system of representations framed by political forces that brought the Orient into
Western learning, Western consciousness, and later, Western empire" (Said 1978: 202). This
allegation made by Said in his book Orientalism (1978) is important for hybrid writers positioned in
our contemporary literary landscape who tell stories about their colonial heritage. Hybrid authors are
oftentimes characterized by the fusion of elements which formerly belonged to the different cultures
of the colonizer and colonized. These writers who are now narrating stories that deal with
(post)colonial issues are no longer people remotely situated from the source. Ahdaf Soueif, an
example in case, is despite her English upbringing closely connected with her Egyptian heritage and
still has a strong connection with the country of her roots, as opposed to earlier colonists. Robert
Young acknowledges this fact and Saids theory by suggesting that colonial discourse analysis has
meant that we have learnt a lot about the fantasmatics of colonial discourse, but at the same time it
has prevented us by definition from knowing about the actual conditions such discourse was framed
to describe, analyze or control (Young 1996, 2007: 2).

Youngs contribution to Bhabhas analysis of colonial discourse has shown how Western
representations of the Orient and colonization in general delineated not just a theoretical approach
but more so a portrayal of their exotic desires. In her novels, Ahdaf Soueif reacts to this ongoing
tendency in the West to imagine the Orient and its culture as exotic objects, by dismantling the
stereotypes which were originally constructed to illustrate Western desires. For ages, Orientalist
discourse has been a form of Western fantasy [which could] say nothing about actuality (Young
2007: 2). These colonial reports on the Orient have initiated a process in which elements belonging
to the Eastern culture, such as the harem, the veil and polygamy are regarded as synonyms for
female oppression. In the postcolonial era, hybrid writers are able to write stories about their own
native country in a format and language which does not discourage Western readers, therefore
accounts from secondary sources are excluded and a more trustworthy picture of the Orient is
illustrated.

2.2.3 The Subaltern - Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak discusses the problematic issue of voice for oppressed people in her
essay Can the Subaltern Speak? in which she refers to this group as the subaltern minorities
(Spivak 1988: 66). The notion subaltern refers to those of inferior rank, a term which was introduced
by Antonio Gramsci to designate the minority groups in society who are struggling with the
domination of the ruling classes (Spivak 1988: 78). Spivak argues that histories which truthfully
narrate the lives of these oppressed people have remained ignored for centuries, a case in point
illustrated by accounts on the subaltern woman, which were always narrated through colonial, male
voices whilst never allowing the woman herself the opportunity to recite her narrative. Spivak
continues her claim by stating that within the effaced itinerary of the subaltern subject, the track of
sexual difference is doubly effaced. [] If, in the context of colonial production, the subaltern has no
history and cannot speak, the subaltern as female is even more deeply in shadow (Spivak 1988:
83). The colonized subject, and more specifically, the subaltern woman, is and has always been
missing in documentary archives, because she is not given a voice. The question whether they can
speak is a question that the subaltern must ask (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin 1998: 218).

Spivak elaborates on her discussion of the exclusion of subaltern groups by referring to the
contemporary and ongoing epistemic suppression that Eastern voices experience, since they are
forced to implant Western forms of thought and writing (Spivak 1988: 80-82). This claim is based
upon Spivaks presumption that the subaltern must adapt their way of thinking, speaking and writing
to a more Western model if they want to be heard. Spivak argues that this is a case which does not
allow those subaltern peoples to really speak their mind and therefore they will never achieve their
hopes to be actually heard, since they must adopt Western ways of thought and reason. By trying to
give the subaltern a voice mediated to a Western model, these oppressed peoples become even
more silent. Spivak ends her article and answers the question whether or not the subaltern can
speak as followed: The subaltern cannot speak. There is no virtue in global laundry lists with
woman as a pious item. Representation has not withered away. The female intellectual as
intellectual has a circumscribed task which she must not disown with a flourish (Spivak 1988: 104).
Spivak concludes that by trying to adapt to Western notions of thinking, writing and telling, the
subaltern reaffirms his position as the subordinated. The significance of the discussion of the
subaltern to this thesis relates to the identity of writer Ahdaf Soueif, who is a female, Anglophone
author writing in the former-colonizers language in a postcolonial era. To follow Spivak in her claim
about the subaltern, who cannot speak, would mean that Ahdaf Soueif narrates her stories in a
lingual and structural model that pleases the West. However, Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin argue that
Spivaks main concern is not that the oppressed cannot voice their resistance or that they must
adjust to a Western mode of voicing their thoughts in order to be heard, rather she focuses on an
unproblematically constituted subaltern identity (Ashcroft, Griffiths, Tiffin 1998: 219).

The significance of discussing all of the vital contributions on hybridity, Orientalism and female
voices delivered by different academics to the field of postcolonial theory relates to the purpose of
this thesis in which the level of hybridity in Ahdaf Soueifs fictional novels is analyzed. Therefore, in
the following chapter of this thesis, I will illustrate how the theoretical concepts and ideas described
above are explored in In the Eye of the Sun (1992) and The Map of Love (1999).
2.3 Novels and Genres
My analysis of In the Eye of the Sun (1992) and The Map of Love (1999) will prove that Ahdaf
Soueifs writing style tries to capture the spirit and conventional customs of the era in which she is
narrating her stories. In the Eye of the Sun tells the story of a young Egyptian woman Asya, whose
life is set against the political actions of the sixties and seventies of the twentieth century. It focuses
on her years-long struggle for personal independence and her attempts to break away from
patriarchal conventions and Orientalist stereotyping, therefore making it a coming of age novel in
the European Romantic tradition of the bildungsroman (Massad 1999: 75). The novel begins in
England in 1979, where we meet a twenty-nine-year-old Asya who has taken the care for her dying
uncle upon her. The story then goes back in time to the infamous year of 1967 where Asya
witnesses the destroying effects of the Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt, Jordan and Syria. As
a young student, she falls in love with Saif but she soon finds herself trapped in an unhappy
marriage based upon patriarchal conventions. Her first steps to independence are set once she has
decided to follow her mothers example by obtaining a Ph.D. in England. However, she soon finds
herself captured in the fantasy of another man, the American Gerald Stone who embodies Orientalist
stereotypes.

In The Map of Love, a contemporary Arab woman, Amal, tells the story of her English-born great-
aunt Anna Winterbourne, who fled her life in Victorian England to travel to the East at the end of the
nineteenth century. Recently widowed, Anna has a desire to explore Egypt to see whether her
admiration for the Orientalist paintings of John Frederick Lewis is justified and whether he depicted
Arab life in its authenticity. Ignoring traditional views the West holds over the East, Anna follows the
footsteps of real Victorian female travelers, such as Lady Lucy Duff Gordon and Lady Emily Blunt,
who looked beyond Orientalist stereotypes. Anna finds love and a new family in Egypt when she
marries Egyptian nationalist Sharif Basha. Over a century later, Amal magically reconstructs Annas
story by exploring the content of a trunk which was brought to her by an American woman, Isabel.
The trunk contains letters, diaries and newspaper clippings. Isabels love story echoes Annas, since
both of them fall in love with an Egyptian man, passionate about the political affairs of his country. In
Isabels case, she falls for Amals brother Omar. My research will illustrate how Ahdaf Soueif cleverly
fuses the fictional and historical level in this novel by capturing the spirit of the age in which her love
story is set, making it a historical romance.

3. Analysis: Hybridity in In the Eye of the Sun (1992) and

The Map of Love (1999)
In order to systematically and thoroughly answer the research questions put forward in the
introduction of this thesis, a distinction has to be made between the different manners in which
Ahdaf Soueif integrates the issue of hybridity in her fictional novels.

Firstly, I will analyze how Ahdaf Soueif integrates hybridity in the formal construction of her novels by
merging different types of texts and by integrating history within fiction. Equally important are the
intertextual references to music and literature originating from Eastern and Western cultures.
Secondly, I will analyze how Ahdaf Soueif, as a person who moves between the distinct spaces of
East and West, is capable to explore confrontational and problematic concepts that deal with the
merger of different cultures. Therefore, the analysis will examine how hybridity in Ahdaf Soueifs
personal life has allowed her to find a place between Egypt and England to write about challenging
subjects in her novels. I will argue that, because she believes in a common ground where cultures
meet, she narrates the lives of young female women that struggle with patriarchal images and
Orientalist stereotyping. I will continue by analyzing the important issue of language and the act of
translation, which prove to be significant and confrontational elements in the lives of Ahdaf Soueifs
characters. The concluding part of my analysis will investigate what kind of future Soueif upholds for
people marked by hybridity in a contemporary context.

3.1 A Hybrid Narrative Structure

This thesis investigates in what manner the concept of Mezzaterra is constructed in Ahdaf Soueifs
fictional novels by focusing on the merger of different cultural elements that suggests a level of
hybridity. The analysis will examine textual and content-related evidence which suggests that Soueif
combines Eastern and Western cultural elements in her novels, influenced by her dual upbringing
that was marked by hybridity. The following part of the research will focus on the composition of the
narrative structures of In the Eye of the Sun (1992) and The Map of Love (1999) by investigating
whether Ahdaf Soueif strives to achieve a similar level of hybridity in the formal construction of her
fictional writings.

3.1.1 Attempted Hybridization in In the Eye of the Sun

(1992)
One of the most striking distinctions between In the Eye of the Sun and The Map of Love is the
manner in which each novel is formally constructed and how its content is narrated. Content related,
the former focuses on the story of Asya, an Egyptian girl who moves to England during the seventies
of last century, while the latter explores two different stories, set in separated periods of time, and
concentrates on two main characters, Anna and Amal. These differences in content signify that the
novels will also differ greatly in textual design, since Asyas story in In the Eye of the Sun begins with
an epilogue that takes the reader to 1979 but afterwards jumps back twelve years and from that
moment onwards continues chronologically, while The Map of Love juggles two different stories set
over a century apart from each other. Joseph Massad has conducted a detailed analysis of both
books and describes their temporal settings and the manner in which the events are narrated as
followed:

In the Eye of the Sun begins in medias res in July 1979 and goes back to May 1967, only to proceed
chronologically again to April 1980. In doing so, Soueif is telling a story that is still happening. This is
quite different from the way she sets up a dialogic of past-present juxtapositions in The Map of Love
[which] begins with the present (1997) and then transports the reader into a series of back-and-forth
temporal peregrinations between the last fin de sicle and the current one. (Massad 1999: 79)
The different manner in which the plots of In the Eye of the Sun and The Map of Love are
constructed marks the way in which many structural elements regarding the narratives are
composed. To begin with, In the Eye of the Sun focuses on the life story of a young Egyptian girl
Asya, set against the political happenings of the sixties and seventies of the previous century, told by
an omniscient narrator. In addition to Asyas account on her own life, the novel contains several
non-fictional sections in which the political situation of Egypt is narrated, beginning with the war in
1967. However, further on in this thesis I will argue that these bulletin reports render the impression
of reading newspaper clippings, since they give static accounts on Egypts political affairs without
referring to any of the novels fictional characters. These political dealings are matters that do not
have a primary impact on Asyas life, rather they seem to determine and affect the lives of less
important characters. The textual lay-out of Soueifs first novel illustrates an unsuccessful blend
because the text can easily be divided into two separate parts, namely the fictional component,
which tells the story of Asya with her own bildungsroman-like narrative, and the historical part that
gives an elaborated, overly-detailed account of political affairs in mid-twentieth century Egypt.
Therefore, I would like to argue that In the Eye of the Sun illustrates Ahdaf Soueifs attempt at
hybridizating different types of texts, but that the merger is ineffective.

3.1.2 The Map of Love (1999) as a Textual Tapestry

Although The Map of Love tells two different stories which are separated by time, the reader only
gets to know the story of Anna Winterbourne by closely following the process in which Amal tries to
put the pieces of her great-aunts life back together. We learn about English-born Anna and her
feelings on her new and married life, which she began in Egypt at the end of the nineteenth century,
through her diary extracts and the letters she wrote to her English friends and father-in-law. In
addition to Annas personal writings, the journal extracts composed by Layla help Amal to shed a
different light on Annas Egyptian life. Consequently, we have two different stories in The Map of
Love that are connected through history, of which the oldest one is entirely reshaped and retold by a
contemporary voice. As a result, the novel contains a framed narrative that consists of a fascinating
collage of different texts as the [narrator does] enormous amounts of research (Luo 2003: 88). The
narrator in this case is Amal who is guiding the reader through Annas story by exploring her journals
and letters. The novel illustrates how Amal comes to terms with her own hybrid identity, which fuses
Arabic and English elements, since she is fascinated with the task of retelling her great-aunts life
story which also focused on the merger of those cultures.

Susan Darraj finds in The Map of Love a textual tapestry that weaves together several parallel
stories: the titles of the books four units (A Beginning, An End of a Beginning, A Beginning of an
End, and An End) hint at the epic proportions and tremendous historic scope of the tale about to
unravel (Darraj 2003: 101). Annas journals and letters constitute the central part of the novel, since
it is Amal who, over a century later, tries to retell her story by investigating these documents. Amal
takes her time to narrate her great-aunts life story step by step and, in doing so, she becomes the
perfect guide who gradually takes the reader through the novel without rushing or stalling the
process of narration. Susan Darraj sees in Amal a reincarnation of Scheherazade, the storyteller of
One Thousand and One Nights, who, in order to save her life from decapitation the following
morning, told her tyrannical husband each night an exciting story without revealing its end. Amal is a
narrator who resembles Scheherazade because, in retelling her great-aunts life, [she] does not
create stories herself, but retells them and highlights their magic (Darraj 2003: 102). The following
lines illustrate this theme of story-telling as Amal claims:

[T]his is not my story. [] This is a story conjured out of a box; a leather trunk that travelled from
London to Cairo and back. [] It is the story of two women: Isabel Parkman, the American who
brought it to me, and Anna Winterbourne, her great-grandmother, the Englishwoman to whom it had
originally belonged. And if I come into it at all, it is only as my own grandmother [Layla] did a
hundred years ago, when she told the story of her brothers love. (ML 11)

Amal possesses a sense of entitlement to her great-aunts story, to the degree that she wants to pick
up her own pen and answer Annas letters and write across time. Amals continuing longing to work
on her Anna project is administered throughout the novel, as illustrated by the following quote from
The Map of Love, uttered by Amal: That is the beauty of the past: there it lies on the table: journals,
pictures, a candle-glass, a few books of history. You leave it and come back to it and it waits for you
unchanged. And you tell the story that they, the people who lived it, could only tell in part (ML
234).

Emily Davis explores in what manner Ahdaf Soueif expresses her belief in hybridity on the narrative
level in The Map of Love and claims that formally, the novel is a postmodern hybrid, interweaving
Anna's journal entries with letters, newspaper clippings and both third-person omniscient and first-
person narrations of the thoughts and actions of the characters and of national and international
political events (Davis 2007: 8). Davis further claims that the very hybrid nature of Soueifs second
novel is not something to be unanticipated, since the author herself has cosmopolitan roots. This
level of hybridity in the narrative structure of The Map of Love, referred to by critics such as Darraj as
a textual tapestry (Darraj 2003: 101), is constituted by many different documents originating from
newspapers, letters and diaries. One of the most important objects in the novel which enables Amal
to make a connection with her ancestors story is the trunk that contains all these objects. The trunk
encloses the journal that chronicles Annas life in England before she travelled to Egypt, the diary
which recounts her stay in the African country, and another journal which tells the story of her
adventure in the Sinai desert and how she fell in love with Sharif. The letters that Amal finds in the
trunk make her reconsider the popularity of travel literature in that time, since Annas writing style
proves that the writer was a little self-conscious perhaps, a little aware of the genre Letters from
Egypt, A Nile Voyage, More Letters from Egypt (ML 58).

At the beginning of the novel, when Isabel gives the trunk and the whole of its content to Amal, they
hope that they can retell Anna Winterbournes story, without ever realizing that they are both related
and that they share a history. The trunk is a symbolic and textual element which brings together
these two separated branches of one family and also connects the two main stories narrated in The
Map of Love.
Amin Malak, who has written several essays on Muslim fiction, specifies the significance of the trunk
as followed:

Annas trunk, now an heirloom to Isabel, involves a multitude of objects and documents: Anna's
detailed diaries of her life in Egypt; period newspaper cuttings in both English and Arabic covering
the first two decades of the twentieth century; a testimony from Layla al-Baroudi, Amal's
grandmother, on family events concerning her brother's, Sharif Basha's, marriage to Anna; and a
tapestry, made by Anna in Cairo, symbolically conjoining Pharaonic and Islamic ciphers. The trunk,
which has travelled from Egypt to Europe to the United States and then back to Egypt, represents
not only an inventive plot device but also a signifier of the novel's salient cross-cultural appeal.
(Malak 2000: 152, italics mine)

The trunk, which contains the journals, diaries and letters, connects Annas story with that of her
great-niece Amal. Amin Malak further applauds this level of text-hybridization by suggesting that
The Map of Love gives the reader a narrative that celebrates hybridity not only linguistically, but
also discursively leading subtly towards humane, positive perspectives on Arab-Muslim culture in its
most tolerant illustrations and in its openness towards the Other (Malak 2000: 157).

Amals desire to recompose Annas life story is not attended with a wish to tell her own narrative,
rather she is utterly preoccupied with telling the story of her ancestors. Amals desire to tell Annas
story provides her with a political genealogy (Davis 2007: 22), because Amal also falls in love with
national heroes such as Sharif through the descriptions that Anna delivers. She even identifies with
Anna and Sharifs struggle of committing themselves to a political fight in a time that mirrors the past
by protecting and supporting the fellaheen, the native peasants, in her Egyptian home town. Amals
quest for retelling Annas story results in the construction of a perfectly constructed, hybrid text
composed out of archival documents, journal writings and personal letters. The same level of textual
hybridity is not experienced when reading In the Eye of the Sun, which already anticipated the
authors attempt at fusing different narrative forms, but the blend was unsuccessful. It was discussed
earlier that Ahdaf Soueif tries to find a merger between the levels of fiction and history in her first
novel by introducing newspaper accounts on political events. Part of this failed attempt at blending
the two layers in In the Eye of the Sun can be attributed to the ineffective textual hybridity. Ahdaf
Soueif has find a way to successfully combine historical events and characters with fictional plot
elements in The Map of Love bymerging them together into two stories which are closely connected
and by making these historical components significant and determining factors in the lives of her
main characters. However, this is not the case with In the Eye of the Sun, since Ahdaf Soueif chose
to make the historical events less important determiners in the life of her main character Asya. As a
result, Ahdaf Soueifs attempt at achieving hybridity in the textual composition of her books is, in
comparison with her first novel, much more applauded in her second one.

3.2 Blending History and Fiction

I think that I've become more and more convinced that most everything we do is determined by our
context. And that embraces the wider context as well. To understand a character, to work out their
motivations, reactions, what they're capable of and what they're not, is all tied to their history, to what
surrounds them. (Soueif 1999: 87)

Both of Ahdaf Soueifs novels In the Eye of the Sun (1992) and The Map of Love (1999) are
characterized by a process in which different levels of content and structure are blended, a merger
which accounts for the authors interest in hybridity. One of the most striking blends that appears in
Ahdaf Soueifs stories is the mixture of fictional and historical characters and events, which is
achieved in two ways. While genuine historical people make an appearance in Ahdaf Soueifs novels
and interact with other characters, the construction of some fictional figures is based upon real
people. In an interview with Joseph Massad (1999), Ahdaf Soueif admits that she delivers to her
Western readers the uneasy task of having to disentangle history from fiction, because she has a
willingness to explore the possibilities and the limitations of peoples personal lives as influenced by
certain historical circumstances. As Ahdaf Soueif claims: I wanted to map out my characters' lives
against a genuine historical background. Why should I invent a historical background, when it's all
there really (Soueif 1999: 87). This attempt at integrating the private and the political level illustrates
one of the most fascinating features of postcolonial writing (Malak 2000: 146). The following section
in this thesis will illustrate how Ahdaf Soueif integrates her interest in hybridity in her fictional writings
by literally blending history and fiction.

3.2.1 Introducing Political Figures and Events in In the

Eye of the Sun(1992)and The Map of Love (1999)
Previous parts of this thesis have already indicated that Ahdaf Soueifs novels explore similar
elements and themes that play significant parts in the lives of young women who are trying to merge
different cultures. In the Eye of the Sun was published in 1992, therefore making it Soueifs first
novel, while her second, The Map of Love, was released in 1999. This gap of seven years has been
significant in the growth of Ahdaf Soueif as an author of fiction, because it appears as if in that extent
of time Soueif has found a new and possibly improved way to blend history with fiction.

To begin with, In the Eye of the Sun is foremost the coming-of-age story of Asya, whose life of
gender oppression and Orientalist stereotyping is set against the Egyptian political affairs of the
sixties and seventies of last century. The novel lays emphasis on the historical events of that era and
takes the reader from the devastating defeat of the Arabs in the 1967 War and the shock of Nasirs
sudden death to the massacres of Palestinians in Jordan, Sadats new era, the brad riots of 1977,
the Lebanese Civil War, and the Washington Posts list of foreign leaders on the CIA payroll
(Massad 1999: 77). Ahdaf Soueif provides a detailed account on the political meetings and actions
that happened during the war of June 1967, in which over a hundred thousands were killed. In doing
so, she addresses a journalistic approach by giving static reports on the events but, simultaneously,
she fictionally narrates how the Egyptian people experienced the war, by looking at the effects of it
through the eyes of a young girl. However, it is significant to point out that Asya does not experience
the consequences of Egypts political actions directly, as Ahdaf Soueif has chosen to make the
secondary characters the immediate victims of the war practices. Soueif does not make these
events significant issues in the lives of her main character. Some parts of In the Eye of the Sun are
composed by numerous pages of descriptions detailing the political meetings which were held
without making any reference to the plot or linking the importance of the events to the fictional
characters. The result of this failed blend, for there is practically none since the historical and the
fictional remain separate elements in almost every part of the novel, is the delivery of dreary and
rather unnecessary newspaper clippings. The few occasions in which Ahdaf Soueif connects a
historical event with the life of a fictional character and only in that case achieves in making a blend,
is a task set up for minor important, secondary characters, such as [Asyas] friend Chrissie [who]
loses a lover in the 1967 war; her friend Noora [who] marries a Palestinian, Bassam, and as a
consequence is disowned by her family; her sister Deenas husband Muhsin [who] ends up in the
infamous Tora prison for leftist activism against Sadats government (Maitzen 2009). As a result,
Ahdaf Soueif does not succeed in convincing the reader of In the Eye of the Sun that the historical
events, which are carefully mapped out by detailed accounts, determine the lives of her main
character and therefore contribute to the plot. In my opinion, they interrupt the narrative.

By criticizing Ahdaf Soueif on her unsuccessful blend of history and fiction I contradict critics such as
Amin Malak (2000) and Emily Davis (2007) who claim that politics provide an interesting background
to the novels fictional story. In an interview with Massad, Ahdaf Soueif explains how she came to
write her first novel:

In the Eye of the Sun really started out as the story of Asya al-Ulama and then the story of the family
and friends surrounding her. It was not possible to do that without the history and politics, but the
impulse that generated the novel was interest in this character and in her immediate circle. []
History and politics come into it only insofar as they affect our protagonist and those around her:
Chrissies fianc lost in the Sinai in 1967 or Bassam being thrown out of Egypt at the time of Camp
David. (Soueif 1999: 83)

I disagree with Ahdaf Soueifs claim in which she states that political events and history only appear
in the novel when it is significant and necessary for the plot. I prefer to argue that many detailed
accounts on political events which are integrated in the narrative of In the Eye of the Sun are non-
compulsory and only interrupt the narrative because of their externality. They do not blend on the
level of narrative structure (cf. A Hybrid Narrative Structure) nor do they merge on content level.

Joseph Massad has compared Ahdaf Soueifs attempt at blending fiction and history in both novels
and claims that politics and history are hors de texte in In the Eye of the Sun, while they are au
fond du texte in The Map of Love (Massad 1999: 81). In an interview with Ahdaf Soueif, Joseph
Massad asked her why her writing has a strong political inflection that varies in style and why
macropolitics play very important yet different roles in both novels (Massad 1999: 83). Soueif
admitted that a difference in the way historical events are intermingled with fictional ones is
noticeable between her two books. She explains that

[t]he impulse behind The Map of Love was different [than with In the Eye of the Sun]. It was more
overtly historical and political, to do with cross-cultural relationships, with history, with the
relationship of the Western world to Egypt and to our area. So, there, the history and the politics are
much more in the forefront, much more central to the novel and the plot. Part of what The Map of
Love is about is how much room personal relationships have in a context of politics and history. And
so history and politics are as much players as the characters- maybe even more so. (Soueif 1999:
83)

Part of the success of The Map of Love is explained by Soueifs achievement of integrating historical
events within the level of fiction by making these historical occurrences significant factors in the lives
of the characters. In Anna and Sharifs story, which begins at the end of the 19th century, the
political situation in Egypt focuses on Britains occupation and how its culture affected the Egyptian
way of living and communicating. Anna directly experiences the tension underlying Egypts struggle
with British occupation and the colonizers intervention in their cultural and political spheres, as
illustrated by her abduction by Egyptian nationalists, her marriage to an esteemed figure in Egyptian
politics, and her commitment to the act of translating important documents. Annas part of the novel
tells the story of the British realm when it was still an empire and its political affairs affected many
parts of the world, while the contemporary story of The Map of Love focuses on Amals life at the
end of the twentieth century, where the focus has shifted from Britain to America and its current
globalization. Massad describes in his article how the old colonial order when the British roamed the
country freely, is compared with the present neocolonial globalized one (Massad 1999: 80). Ahdaf
Soueif successfully blends history with fiction, and in doing so, she even attempts at bridging political
powers at the end of the Victorian age with those of the contemporary era. Making the political
affairs in Egypt significant and determining factors in the lives of a storys main characters has
proven to be a productive blend of fiction and history, while it is simultaneously a more enjoyable
and easier read. By successfully combining these levels in The Map of Love, the reader is more
encouraged to acknowledge and understand the political events which are reported in the novel,
rather than skipping five or more pages at once because the historical accounts do not administer
great significance to the plot, as is the case with In the Eye of the Sun.

The research which Ahdaf Soueif conducted in order to write a novel focusing on a particular time in
the history of Egypt began with carefully analyzing that period. Afterwards, the fictional story was
integrated within the historical level and the characters and plot were constructed (Soueif 1999: 87).
Both In the Eye of the Sun and The Map of Love illustrate how Ahdaf Soueif is interested in the issue
of hybridity by her attempt to accomplish a strong blend in which history and fiction are mutually
significant. Critics have admired the research she must have undertaken in order to deliver a fictional
work which stays true to important events in Egyptian history. Massad (1999) praises her work,
shown in the following extract which focuses on Ahdaf Soueifs The Map of Love. He claims that

[Ahdaf Soueif] has familiarized herself with minute details about a period of Egyptian history (Autumn
1897-December 1913) that is not particularly well studied (except for the infamous shootings at
Denshwai), as it is bracketed between two revolutions-the 'Urabi revolt of 1882 and the 1919
revolution-to which it is subordinated. The Mashriqi and Palestinian histories of the period are also
meticulously revisited. From the beginning of the Zionist colonial project to the apex of Arab anti-
Ottomanism, Soueif transforms history into a guide to the present. (Massad 1999: 82)

The strongest blend of fiction and history in The Map of Love is constructed by the introduction of
historical people within the story. Figuring them as characters in the story has labeled Ahdaf Soueifs
The Map of Love as "a tour de force of revisionist metahistory of Egypt in the twentieth century"
(Davis 2007: 9). Historical figures are given a second life and voice in Ahdaf Soueifs novel, which
allows them to express their beliefs. An example of such a figure who is introduced in the novel as a
character is Mohammad Abdou, who is introduced as Sharifs best friend and who was a pioneer in
the intellectual revival movement in his home-country, who believed in openness to other cultures
and reformation (Davis 2007:29). A second example of a historical figure who is introduced in Ahdaf
Soueifs second novel is Qasim Amin, author of controversial books and who delivers a feminist
touch to Ahdaf Soueifs story by focusing on the rights of women (Darraj 2002: 103). Both Layla and
Anna write in their journals about meeting this Arab feminist at the beginning of the twentieth
century. By letting Qasim Amin communicate with her fictional characters and by literally allowing
him to voice his thoughts, Ahdaf Soueif displays her admiration for this historical figure and his
thoughts on the rights of Arab women, as illustrated by the following quote, uttered by Qasim Amin:
We cannot claim to desire a Renaissance for Egypt, while half her population live in the Middle
Ages. To take the simplest matters, how can children be brought up with the right outlook by
ignorant mothers? How can a man find support and companionship with an ignorant wife? (ML 380-
81). Soueifs fictional actors are inspired by the words and thoughts of real, historical characters and
by giving them a second life and allowing them to speak their minds, she succeeds in constructing a
bridge between significant matters regarding the Arab people over a century ago and those living in
the contemporary world.

Ahdaf Soueif does not only introduce historical characters who are passionate about the Egyptian
nationalist cause to render her story more real, she also gives the opposite side a voice by bringing
Britains consul general in Egypt Lord Cromer in the picture. To insert this matter of Egyptian-British
dual opposition which dominated political affairs at the end of the nineteenth century, but more so to
contrast Qasim Amins feminist belief in women rights with Cromers, Soueif illustrates how Western
people interfered in Eastern affairs, not always with a progressive agenda. As opposed to Qasim
Amin, Lord Cromer was an opponent of the feminist movement who cut funding to already existing
girls' schools in Egypt and [who] was a member of the vehemently antifeminist Men's League for
Opposing Women's Suffrage back home (Ahmed qtd. in Davis 2007: 11).

As discussed earlier, Soueif does not only succeed in merging historical characters and events with
fictional ones, she also uses them as models for her characters. In The Map of Loves contemporary
story, which focuses on Amal and Isabels efforts in telling their ancestors story, Amals brother
Omar bears a striking resemblance to Edward Said. As argued before, Edward Said was interested
in the discourse on the Orient and shifted the study of colonialism among cultural critics towards its
discursive operations (Young 2007: 1). Not only did he make many significant attributions and
discoveries on the field of colonial theory and literature, he was also passionate about contemporary
worldly affairs and politics and a close friend of Ahdaf Soueif. In September 2003, one day after his
death, Soueif published an article in which she celebrated his accomplishments and expressed her
admiration for her friend by calling him not just a formidable thinker and writer but also a loyal and
thoughtful friend (Soueif 2003). Ahdaf Soueif did not hesitate to show her admiration for her friend
prior to the publication of that article, since she had used Said as a model for one of the most
important male characters of The Map of Love, which was published four years before Saids death.
Both Said and Omar are inspired by the Palestinian situation and resign from the Palestine National
Council to react against the Oslo Accords. Both are writers, and according to Malak, the titles of
Omars books, "The Politics of Culture 1992, A State of Terror 1994, Borders and Refuge 1996" (ML
21), pay tribute to Saids political and scholarly concerns (Malak 2003: 155). While in real-life Said
was often referred to as the Professor of Terror, referring to his hypothetical double career as a
literary scholar and the supporter of terrorism, Omar has to undergo the labeling of a similar
degrading emblem, since he is called "Kalashnikov Conductor" and the "Molotov Maestro" (ML 17).
Edward Said was an acclaimed pianist and together with his friend Daniel Barenboim, an Israeli
conductor, he organized a series of concerts for the collaborative cause, which involved Palestinian
and Israeli musicians (Davis 2007: 9), an event which resembles Omars concert in the West Bank in
The Map of Love. By modeling Omar, a fictional character, after a historical character and close
friend of herself, Ahdaf Soueif does not only illustrate her interest in hybridity by blending history with
fiction, she also succeeds in introducing a part of her personal life into the novel. She illustrates her
private admiration by taking her friend as a model for one of her male characters.

3.2.2 Introducing Female Travel Writers in The Map of

Love (1999)
While Ahdaf Soueif displays her admiration for some significant figures of Arabic feminism and
Egyptian affairs such as Qasim Amin and Edward Said, she also expresses her esteem for Victorian
female travelers who explored the Orient and sought to give a truthful account on how they
experienced its culture. Numerous references are made not only to historical figures in Egyptian-
British politics, but also to real female travelers, such as Lady Lucy Duff Gordon and Emily Blunt,
many of whom wrote down their observations in travel books which were later published on British
soil. By delivering descriptions of life in African Egypt, these accounts on the harem and other
Oriental ways of living were expressed from a Western and female viewpoint. This, however, did not
give the Egyptian, subaltern woman the ability to tell her story, but it did defy traditional colonial
reports on the Orient, which were traditionally very gendered and written by male colonialists. Lady
Lucy Duff Gordon travelled to Egypt in 1982, leaving behind in her native country England a
husband and three children. She communicated with Egyptian natives frequently as she pursued an
itinerant lifestyle in search of dry weather and elusive health (Wynne 2006: 58). In order to finance
her stay she published Letters from Egypt in 1865, a book which displayed an attitude hardly met
with before in the English abroad: first of all she avoided the supposed comforts and security of
Cape Town and took herself up-country to Caledon; secondly she chose the company of non-
Europeans, preferring best to be with the poor Malay immigrants (Robinson qtd. in Luo 2003: 86). In
The Map of Love, Anna reads Lady Lucy Duff Gordons Letters and finds herself so intrigued by
Gordons representation of the country that she starts projecting Gordons life upon her own. This
projection is picked up by Amal, who explores the historical incident of the relationship between
Gordons maid and her favorite Egyptian servant and wonders whether Emilys detestation of the
country and her longing for England was also determined by an unwanted pregnancy. Amal
wonders: Would she do what Lucy Duff Gordons Sally did and melt into the back streets of
Alexandria, pregnant with the child of her mistress favorite servant, Omar al-Halawini? (ML 68).
In addition to Anna reading Lady Lucy Duff Gordons book on Egypt and Amals comparison of her
great aunts maid with Gordons, another historical woman traveler is mentioned in the novel.
According to Luo (2003: 85), Lady Anne Blunt was inspired by her husband Sir Wilfrid Blunt, an
explorer, Orientalist scholar and defender of the Arab Nationalist cause, to emerge herself in
Egyptian life. While Anna is on the bridge of stepping in her footsteps, she contemplates on doing
the same: Though I did not fancy running barefoot in the streets of Cairo, dressing as a man to go
on an expedition did not seem so outlandish it is said that Lady Anne Blunt does it and other ladies
besides (ML 107). Annas unwillingness to travel with a tour group, accompanied by fellow-
Europeans, since [then] I would have seen things through my companions eyes (ML 212), is in
addition to the influence of accounts written by female traveler predecessors, also inspired by her
admiration for John Frederick Lewis paintings. Lewis defied traditional Orientalist stereotypes by
depicting the Orient in its authentic shape, refusing to please his Western audience by painting an
exotic and erotic world. Wynne claims that Lewis is another figure who can be seen as someone
who was occupying a Soueifian mezzaterra, since he spent eleven years in the East and who
surrendered himself to Oriental life (Wynne 2006: 62).

By inserting references to these people who sought to depict the Orient in its authenticity and by
introducing historical characters passionate about Arabic feminism and national politics, Ahdaf
Soueif displays her personal admiration for these figures. Reciting their words and actions gives the
reader an idea of which people, according to Ahdaf Soueif, strove to find hybridity between cultures
and therefore occupied the Mezzaterra.

3.3 English and Arabic cultural references

As argued in the introduction to this thesis, Ahdaf Soueif experiences a high level of hybridity in her
personal life, which is constituted by a merger of Arabic and English cultural elements. In In the Eye
of the Sun and The Map of Love Ahdaf Soueif delves into the effects of her upbringing which was
characterized by the hybrid blend of two different cultures. Born in Egypt and educated in England,
she illustrates her exposure to Arabic and European literature and music in her youth by integrating
many intertextual references to songs and books in her novels. This thesis explores the manner in
which Ahdaf Soueif integrates her personal interest in hybridity and the Mezzaterra in her fictional
writings and one of the most striking examples that displays her passion in combining different
cultures is the blend of references to Arabic and English arts, which will be discussed in the following
section.

3.3.1 Arabic Songs and Anglophone Literature in In the

Eye of the Sun (1992)
The title of Ahdaf Soueifs first fictional novel is probably one of the most straightforward examples
that illustrates Soueif blend of Arabic and English cultural references. In the Eye of the Sun refers to
a line in the poem Song of the Wise Children, written by Anglophone author Rudyard Kipling in
1902 and published in The Five Nations. Part of this poem functions as the epigraph to the epilogue
of Ahdaf Soueifs In the Eye of the Sun (ES 737). According to the analysis made by Mary Hamer
(2008), Kipling revisited in his poem the first years of his life which were spent Mumbai, then still
known as Bombay. In his poetic construct, he pines over the delight and freedom that he
experienced as a child in India, as opposed to the misery and cold climate he found in England. On
the one hand, the reader can interpret this intertextual reference to the poem as a bridge between
Kiplings feelings of desolation and Asyas unhappiness in In the Eye of the Sun, both relating to
England, on the other hand, the Arab reader of [Ahdaf Soueifs] novel cannot miss its resonance
with the famous 1960s song of Egyptian singer Shadia: Tell the eye of the sun not to get too hot, for
my hearts beloved sets out in the morning (Massad 1999: 75). Shadia was an Egyptian singer and
actress who appeared in more than a hundred feature films, before donning the veil in 1987 and
leaving show business for religious reasons (Shafik 2002: 716). Despite the fact that Ahdaf Soueif
cites many Arabic songs in her first novel, she does not refer to that particular song by Shadia,
therefore letting it linger in the cultural preconscious of its Arab reader (Massad 1999: 75). The title
illustrates Ahdaf Soueifs attempt at blending two different cultures which have played significant
parts in her life marked by hybridity. The task is left with the reader to decide whether or not she
intended the title to be a cultural reference to Egypt, Britain or a hybrid blend of both.

In addition to the dual interpretation of the title, In the Eye of the Sun also contains straightforward
intertextual references to novels by nineteenth-century authors such as George Eliot, Leo Tolstoj
and Gustave Flaubert, as illustrated by the following extract in which Asya contemplates her
adulterous affair:

Youve committed adultery, youve done it, youve joined Anna and Emma and parted company
forever with Dorothea and Maggiealthough Dorothea would have understoodwould she? Yes,
she would; she would not have approved, she would have urged her to renounce, to stop, to send
him awaybut she would have understood; she had a great capacity for understanding. (ES 541)

According to Davis, the decision to cite heroines such as Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina and
Dorothea Brooke and thus expressing the influence of Western literature on her own writing, has
placed Ahdaf Soueif in a difficult, but not uncommon position for diasporic writers (Davis 2007: 8).
Rohan Maitzen even goes so far as in suggesting that In the Eye of the Sun can be called the
Egyptian Middlemarch, because of its numerous intertextual references to George Elliots novel
(Maitzen 2009). The most obvious references to Middlemarch are the epigraphs that open some
chapters of In the Eye of the Sun:

and do we not expect people to be moved by what is not unusual. That element of tragedy which
lies in the very fact of frequency, has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind; and
perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling for all ordinary
human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrels heart beat, and we should die
of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. (Eliot, qtd. in ES)

There are many literal references to the nineteenth century novel present in the story itself, such as:
[Asyas mother] George Eliot? But why were they arguing about George Eliot? [Chrissie] I think
Asya was saying she was a great writer and [Saif] was saying she wasnt (ES 298). Maitzen claims
that the two novels occupy, despite their different cultural backgrounds, a literary mezzaterra or
common ground (Maitzen 2009).

As a child that was born in the East but grew up and received an education in the West, Ahdaf
Soueifs exposure to Arabic literature was more limited in comparison with the Anglophone novels
she had at her disposure. Soueif admits that, during her youth, she read more literature in English,
since it was the first language that she learned to read in (Soueif 1999: 88). Currently, Ahdaf Soueif
is living in England, which makes it even more difficult to stay in contact with the Arabic literary
scene, however, she does not neglect the influence of Arabic literary writings which have left their
marks on her writing process as well. She explains: I still remember the air of excitement in the
house when al-Liss wa al-Kilab came out, as my mother was one of the main critics who wrote about
Naguib Mahfuz. [] I read al-Tayyib Salih, I read Naguib Mahfuz, I read Yusif Idriss and Fathi
Ghanim, a lot of current poetry, but in the end I read more English (Soueif 1999: 88).

3.3.2 Eastern and Western Epigraphs and Hybrid

Metaphors in The Map of Love(1999)
Ahdaf Soueifs attempt at incorporating hybridity by inserting intertextual references to Eastern and
Western literature into her novels is also present, though less transparent, in The Map of Love.
Soueifs second novel shares its title with a collection of poems by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, which
was published in 1939 (Diab 2008), however, it remains unclear whether the title also refers to
Arabic literature or music. More importantly, each chapter in The Map of Love opens with an
epigraph which refers to either a Western or Eastern text. Ahdaf Soueif inserts these references in
an alternating pattern so that the Anglophone voices of Coleridge and Yeats are heard, as well as
those of Arabic figures such as Arwa Salih and Ama Ata Aidoo. Soueif explains her decision to insert
these intertextual references in her novels by linking them with her own private admiration for these
stories, since these were the books that she read when she was growing up. She admits that those
novels recited the stories [I] go back to again and again-the books that do for me what I want a
novel to do, which is to open up a new world and seduce me into it, to make me feel that I am living
there and getting to know these people (Soueif 1999: 88). During her youth, Ahdaf Soueif came
across great romances which are considered classics by contemporary readers and are still read
in great numbers today. She admits to being absorbed by novels such as Jane Eyre(1847),
Wuthering Heights(1847), Middlemarch (1871) and many others. However, as an adult, Ahdaf Soueif
came to rethink the portrayal of the male heroes in Western literature, realizing that, on the one
hand, these men oftentimes bore strong resemblances to Eastern men, while on the other hand,
many Western books which did write about the East never really captured the notion of a true
Egyptian man. This observation made by Ahdaf Soueif can be linked with Edward Saids theory on
Orientalism in which he claims that Western literature did not depict the East in its authenticity,
rather it focused on the exotic elements, as illustrated by the success of Arabian Nights. Therefore,
Ahdaf Soueif wanted to merge these opposite depictions of classic European and Eastern heroes in
one character. She explains:
I became interested in the idea of the romantic hero ... as in Mr. Rochester and Heathcliff, and all the
characters that we find in Mills and Boon novels--tall, dark, handsome, enigmatic, a stranger, proud,
aloof, yet you just know that if you can get close you'll find these depths of sensitivity and empathy
and passion and tenderness, and so on. And this hero is very often kind of Eastern, but he isn't ever
really Eastern. And I've read novels and stories where he's meant to be Egyptian and he really isn't
at all. He's completely fake. Or they have to make him Christian because they can't go into the whole
Muslim bit, but he's called Ali or Mohammed because that's what Easterners are called--very odd,
pastichey things like that. And I thought, what if I make a hero who's larger than life, who's
somebody I would think, Wow! and he's a real, genuine Egyptian, of that time, with the concerns of
that period. (Soueif qtd. in Davis 2007: 5)

By characterizing the Egyptian Sharif, who is strongly passionate about the Nationalist cause of his
mother country, after classic and romantic heroes as described in English novels is another
significant example that illustrates Soueifs interest in merging Egyptian and English cultural
elements in her novels. She reacts to false portrayals of Eastern men in Western literature by
creating an Egyptian hero who shares characteristics with classic, European, literary figures.

Ahdaf Soueif cleverly explores her belief in the Mezzaterra through the insertion of hybrid
metaphors in The Map of Love. In the novel, Anna Winterbourne tries to express her hybrid identity
characterized by English and Arabic elements, by combining different cultures in one, hybrid
tapestry. As an English widowed lady, who has traveled to Egypt and has married a Muslim man
committed to the political situation of his country, she finds a way to fuse the different cultures in one
singe element. During her last months in Egypt, she makes a tapestry which displays images of
Egyptian pharaohs, but it also contains the inscription of an Islamic verse. More importantly, the
images depict the Goddess Isis with the God Osiris and between them the Infant Horus (ML 403),
which illustrates Annas transculturation in the Egyptian world, her way of rewriting the classical
myth with her own love story (Luo 2003: 93). This flag displays the Crescent and the Cross,
illustrating the union of Egyptian Muslims and Christians in their struggle with British occupation.
Other hybrid metaphors are the mosque nestling inside a monastery; and the three calendars
followed simultaneously in Egypt: Gregorian, Islamic and Coptic (Malak 2000: 157).

Annas attempt at conveying her new, hybrid identity by making a tapestry is dispersed at the end of
The Map of Love, because her work of embroidery is divided into three parts and distributed to
different parts of the world, only to be restored in its entirety a century later. It remains unclear what
Ahdaf Soueif wanted to express by breaking up this tapestry only to have it recombined a hundred
years later. A possible interpretation is that, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the conditions
necessary for a hybrid identity to survive were not yet established, since the political situation in
Egypt was still too determined by British colonization. The tapestry is restored at the end of the
century, which could mean that through the new hybrid family constituted by Amal, Isabel and her
baby Sharif, the hybridity which Anna tried to achieve is only realizable in a contemporary context.

Ahdaf Soueifs attempt at blending different cultures illustrates her belief that, in some ways, cultures
have always been and will always be connected, since The Map of Love delves into history to find
connections that have always bound all cultures, no matter how different, and suggests that a more
intricate phenomenon is in fact taking place, as in those border zones where a complex syncretic
cultural system comes to replace two or more cultures (Luo 2003: 80). To decide whether Luos
claim, which echoes Homi K. Bhabhas theory on the Third Space, is correct, is a task set up for
the reader. This section of the thesis has striven to expose Ahdaf Soueifs belief in hybridity by
analyzing the manner in which she blends Eastern and Western cultural references in her fictional
writings. Not only does she introduce intertextual references to music and literature from England
and Egypt, she also incorporates hybrid metaphors that respect cultural blends.

3.4 Women Confronting Gender Issues and the Politics

of Desire
In her fictional writings, Ahdaf Soueif narrates the lives of young women from an Egyptian or English
descent, who are exposed to the influential, cultural powers of East and West and who are
constantly attempting to escape patriarchal conventions. As a female author whose personal life has
been characterized by a high level of hybridity, Ahdaf Soueif allows her female characters to voice
their own thoughts and feelings on the struggle that they encounter when trying to merge different
cultures. Empowering these women to express their own voices provides them with the opportunity
to disentangle themselves from earlier literature written during the colonial era, which focused on the
image of the subservient and silent Arab wife. Ahdaf Soueif has chosen to attack these traditional
views in her fictional novels and describes the lives of strong, female women who seek to take
control of their own lives and discover their personal desires. As mentioned before, Ahdaf Soueif is,
in addition to being a writer of fiction, also an essayist of nonfictional articles, who has explored the
conditions for and consequences of the construction of a hybrid space where different cultures can
co-exist and people from a different gender and race are considered equal. Part of this common
ground is designated to the liberation of women from patriarchal visions which will eventually allow
them to express their own desires.

Despite the fact that the following words are expressed by a male character, Sharifs wish in The
Map of Love seems to constitute in words what all of Ahdaf Soueifs female characters try to achieve
in deeds, Our only hope now lies in a unity or conscience between the people of the world (ML
484). This quote echoes Darrajs claim, in which she claims that the female characters in Ahdaf
Soueifs fictional writings are pulled between the polar forces of East and West, but only achieve
balance when they carve out a place for themselves in the midst of that cultural intersection (Darraj
2003: 93). Ahdaf Soueif fictionally explores the Mezzaterra in her novels by focusing on women in
hybrid families, who try to create a place for themselves, real or imagined, within a world of
Orientalist stereotypes, historical tensions and patriarchal concepts, in an imperial and postcolonial
context, whilst never losing sight of their personal desires. In the Eye of the Sun and The Map of
Love tell the stories of these women who have to undertake an emotional and liberating journey in
order to achieve balance and a self-fulfilling, hybrid identity.

The central locus which connects the various themes of gender issues, postcolonial politics and
East-West clichs together in Ahdaf Soueifs stories is the focus on young women who struggle with
their desire to express control and take repossession of their own lives, free from any form of
patriarchal or colonial oppression. Before analyzing how these female characters voice their own
desires, a discussion of the traditional images of Muslim women is needed. Shanaz Khan (2002) has
explored the fixed and predetermined notions of Arab women that circulate the contemporary world,
and argues that these women are often forced to enter specific social and political spaces,
because their minority identities are predetermined, therefore they are faced with the impossibility
to create a self-fulfilling identity. Arab women are predestined to be excluded from an imaginative
space where equal rights are applauded, because the prejudices that depict them as weak and
subservient creatures are rooted in society. Khan, influenced by the literature on Homi K. Bhabhas
Third Space (1984), suggests a departure from the fixed notions of Muslim women that have
constantly denied them the opportunity to create a hybrid identity. The primary focus of this search
for hybridity is the encounter of East and West, of Arabic and English, and of men and women in an
intercultural context (Massad 1999: 75). Soueif explores desire not from either a Western or Eastern
angle, but from a female viewpoint which condones gender oppression and applauds the women
who take control of their own life and sexual desires whilst creating a hybrid identity that tries to
combine elements from different cultures. This expression of desires has resulted in the depiction of
Ahdaf Soueif as a Middle-eastern women writer who breaks taboo terrain on gender issues (Darraj
2003: 148), because the female characters in Soueifs fiction often discuss complex sexual matters
among themselves. Soueifs female characters undertake a similar emotional journey to achieve
equal rights, a process which faces them with many sensitive issues such as desire, love and
sexuality. As a result, Ahdaf Soueifs fiction seems to confront the literary landscape with some
questions which have remained unanswered throughout history, such as whether or not (Arab)
women have the right to liberate themselves from patriarchal conventions. It appears as if Ahdaf
Soueif tries to answer this and similar confronting questions by allowing her female characters to
explore and voice their desires whilst constantly moving between the cultures of East and West.

3.4.1 Attacking Patriarchal Stereotypes and Gender

Conventions in In the Eye of the Sun (1992)
The recurring theme of women who are trying to explore and express their personal desires is
explored in Ahdaf Soueifs fictional writings in diverse ways. In the Eye of the Sun narrates the story
of a young Egyptian woman who tries to liberate herself from patriarchal images that portray and
thrust her into the role of submissive human being. Darraj (2003: 98) describes Asyas private
rebellion as her struggle between being the subject of her story narrated by someone else, primarily
the patriarchal forces, embodied by Saif, and the equally powerful Western forces in the novel,
characterized by Gerald, and telling her story herself. In doing so, she will become the narrator and
sole determiner of her own life, an act which requires a triumph over the stereotype of the sexual,
but silenced Arab woman (Darraj 2003: 98). In the novel, Asya is confronted with several male
characters that represent patriarchal beliefs and Orientalist stereotypes, embodied respectively by
Saif and Gerald, each of them guilty of trying to manipulate and possess her. Asyas ongoing battle
with these different forms of gender oppression starts when she marries Saif and she becomes the
subject of his imagination and desires. She struggles with finding her way in the neatly-composed
life and narrative that her husband implements. Dreaming of fleeing this overpowering patriarchal
oppression, Asyas first attempt at finding refuge is escaping into the lives of Western, female,
literary characters told in novels such as Anna Karenina (1877) by Lev Tolstoj, and Madame
Bovary(1856) by Gustave Flaubert. These female characters are European women who liberate
themselves from unhappy marriages by initiating affairs. However, Asya is confronted with reality by
her mother who warns her: This is not a novel: this is your life (ES 568), making it hard to achieve
that particular moment where she can fully reclaim her own life from Saif.

The politics of Asyas personal pursuit of combining love and sexual desire is entangled with
concepts of patriarchal conventions. Desire in In the Eye of the Sun can be seen as the broad range
of experiences of wanting, erotic and non-erotic (Shihada 2010: 158), since it narrates the story of
Asya who is continually preoccupied with the fulfillment of all her desires, both sexual as intellectual.
However, Asya only liberates herself from these rooted conventions at the end of the novel, because
she obliges to her husbands humiliating wishes in the first years of their marriage. She is even
compelled to neglect her own sexual desires because of Saifs inability to consummate their
marriage. This surrendering devotion which Asya subjects to can be linked with the patriarchal
organization of a culture where the privileging of the assertions of desire by men [is] accompanied
by a sense of responsibility by women to assimilate and act upon these assertions of desire by
males superiors (Shihada 2010: 158). This means that women are obliged to put the fulfillment of
their husbands desires before anything else, including their own, private wishes. Asyas struggle to
liberate herself from male occupation is made difficult by an ongoing belief in patriarchal
conventions, because these are rooted in her culture. Asya claims that she and Saif get along well
as long as she behaves the way he wants her to behave (ES 299). Saif embodies the male,
patriarchal society in Egypt which denies its women to speak up for themselves and live their own
lives. Malak argues that in doing this, Ahdaf Soueifs fictional writings echoes the works of almost all
contemporary Arab and Muslim women who write in English, by claiming that these reveal an
unequivocal sense of affiliation with their Islamic culture, while at the same time condemning and
combating the abusive excesses of patriarchy when it appropriates and exploits the religious
argument to preserve its own spiritual and material hegemony (Malak 2000: 144). These female,
Arab writers do not disdain their culture as a whole, but they condemn the patriarchal aspect, which
denies women and men equal rights, of it. Despite these patriarchal stereotypes and the fact that
she used to love her husband, Asya begins the process of reclaiming her life and exploring her own
desires by literally abandoning her surrendering devotion to her spouse and the patriarchal life which
she unwillingly subscribed to. She even leaves Egypt and starts anew in England, which means that,
at that point, Asya has started to seize full control of her life, although she still has to endure many
obstacles before she can finally express her hybrid identity that acknowledges her personal desires.
Although she manages to break away from her life with Saif in Egypt by pursuing her academic
possibilities in England, their marriage is still declared valid and she is still bound to his will. At one
point in the story, Asya seems to express her private sexual desires and liberate herself from Saifs
patriarchal conventions by initiating the affair with Gerald Stone, however, she soon finds herself
trapped once more in the fantasy of a controlling, male character. Gerald Stone embodies the
Western, male imperialist, extremely passionate about the Orient, who wants to add Asya to his
collection of exotic creatures. By tearing herself away from Gerald and allowing herself to express
her true feelings, she reacts to everything what this sexual imperialist (ES 723) represents: the
Arab woman as an exotic, eastern princess who has to be captured and held captive. By rejecting
this Orientalist fantasy and Saifs patriarchal notion of a silent, dutiful wife, Asya creates a new
identity which describes herself as an independent, strong woman, capable of exploring and
expressing her own desires. According to Darraj, this new identity is based upon Asyas own
strengths and abilities, which grows out of the acceptance of her hybridity as an Arab and an
Englishwoman (Darraj 2003: 100).

The last obstacle Asya has to overcome in the struggle that will liberate her from male oppression is
the confession of her marital betrayal to her husband Saif. By giving him the letters she wrote during
and after her affair with Gerald, which contain her true feelings and thoughts on their troublesome
marriage that eventually led to her adulterous behavior, Asya finds herself on the bridge of finally
becoming that independent person who liberates herself from gender oppression. Saif refuses to
read them and throws the letters in the stove, hereby rejecting the image which Asya has been trying
to achieve, since the letters allowed her to defy the patriarchal stereotype of the silent Arab wife.
Despite Saifs act, she refuses to become once more the object of his patriarchal fantasy. Darraj
claims that Asyas control of her narrative, and therefore her own life, signals her ability to speak
from the weaker position of the culturally, linguistically, and sexually colonized (Darraj 2003: 101).
She succeeds in accomplishing such an act because she is no longer trapped in the separated
places of either East or West, symbolized by Saif and Gerald, but because she has found a space
between Egypt and England, freed from gender occupation.

3.4.2 Addressing Gender Conventions in English and

Egyptian Societies during Colonial Times in The Map of
Love (1999)
The struggle for gender independence, which is undertaken by Ahdaf Soueifs female characters in
order to reach a common ground where man and woman are equal, is also present in The Map of
Love, though less noticeable when compared to In the Eye of the Sun. While the latter focuses on a
young Arab woman, trapped in an unhappy marriage with her Egyptian husband, the former centers
around a Victorian English lady, Anna, widowed after the death of her spouse. At first sight, Anna
does not appear to experience similar problems in comparison with Asyas struggles for gender
independence, however, she does experience some confrontational problems that have to do with
man-woman oppositions. At the onset of the novel, Anna Winterbourne is living with her English,
depressed husband in their London residence. Anna is left uninformed about the precise
circumstances which led to Edwards mental disposition, because she is a woman. The brutal war
practices that he witnessed as a soldier in the Sudan war, have led him to behave strangely and
emotionally depressed, however, Edward disregards his wifes troublesome feelings by treating them
as a womanly folly (ML 29). Excluded from knowing the truth and being unable to help, Anna
believes that she is responsible for her husbands emotional break-down, therefore she eventually
takes the blame for his death. She reasons that a happy man would not leave his home and go
seeking death in the desert. A well-loved man would not die with horrors eating silently, secretly at
his mind. If she had loved him better, perhaps he would not have needed to go to the Sudan. If she
had understood him better, perhaps she could have nursed him back to health (ML 41).

Ahdaf Soueif explores the conventionalized roles which were connected with women living during
Victorian times, the rooted stereotypes that described them as subservient creatures and
scapegoats who had to take blame for all the bad things that took place in their marriages. Gender
issues play an important part in Soueifs stories, as illustrated by Isabels quote in The Map of Love,
after Amal has informed her about Annas feelings of guilt after her husbands death: Were
trained, conditioned to blame ourselves. This guy was inadequate, and somehow she, the woman,
ends up taking responsibility (ML 42). This excerpt clarifies Annas struggle with gender
conventions, a battle which she even experiences after she has begun her life with her second
husband in Egypt. Despite the fact that she conforms to the Arab way of living and respects the
culture of the harem, she does experience some difficulty with gender customs in the Egyptian
culture. After their marriage, Sharif is furious when he learns about Annas trip to the bank where she
withdrew some money. In the Arab culture, when a woman goes to a bank to withdraw money from
an account, she simultaneously sends out a message that accuses her husband of negligence (ML
351). This second fragment proves that Anna is not always aware of the politics of gender
conventions and how sensible the topic is in both the Western and Eastern culture.

Annas ongoing battle with gender conventions is accompanied by her desire to experience life of an
Egyptian woman in the Arab world, a desire which eventually takes her to Egypt. While it was Asya
who, in In the Eye of the Sun, wanted to flee gender oppression illustrated by the patriarchal visions
and Orientalist fantasies of Saif and Gerald, it is Anna who in The Map of Love desires to see the
inside of a harem, a wish which, according to Wynne, was not uncommon for the nineteenth century
traveler of her class (Wynne 2006: 57). Annas desire to see the inside of the harem originates from
her fascination with John Frederick Lewis paintings which she saw on her daily strolls to Londons
South Kensington Museum during her husbands illness. After her husbands death, she travels to
Egypt to discover whether Lewis rendering of the harem is a world which truly exists (ML 46). In a
recent article in which Ahdaf Soueif discusses Orientalist paintings, the author admits to finding
Lewis work so attractive that it became a source of sustenance for the heroine of her novel, The
Map of Love(Soueif 2008).Annas desire to explore the harem resulted primarily out of a Western,
stereotyped wish to see for herself what this exotic place looks like. However, Anna liberates
herself from this traditional traveler-pattern and immerses herself in the Egyptian culture and, in
doing so, gradually acquires understanding of the people, and, more specifically, the women
surrounding her. When Anna puts on the veil to ensure an uncomplicated journey to the Sina, she
feels exhilarated by the freedom that this Eastern piece of clothing provides, as illustrated by the
following quote, uttered by Anna: It is a most liberating thing, this veil. While I was wearing it, I could
look wherever I wanted and nobody could look back at me. Nobody could find out who I was. I was
one of many black-clad harem in the station and on the train and could have traded places with
several of them and no one been the wiser (ML 195);

This excerpt from The Map of Love can be linked with Leila Ahmeds claim (1982: 523) in which she
suggests that, although the veil is conventionally perceived in the West as a gendered oppressive
custom, it is not experienced as such by the women who wear it. It functions as a symbol of women
being separated from men, which is traditionally seen in the West as an act of oppression. By
allowing Anna the chance to explore the world of the harem and by letting her wear the veil, Ahdaf
Soueif illustrates that some stereotypes, which are rooted in our Western way of thinking about the
East and that link these Arab customs with gender oppression, are falsely constructed and do not
depict the Orient in its authenticity. The fragment makes clear that Anna starts to identify with the
native, for even when she encounters her former fellow-English travelers at the train station, she
feels a kind of alienation. Ironically, what brings Anna to fully explore her desires and see the inside
of the harem is not the traditional journey a Victorian traveler would undertake, it is because of her
friendship with the native Egyptian woman Layla that she is able and allowed to visit the harem.
Anna can now fully explore her desires which make her realize that the traditional representation of
the harem is, despite traditional beliefs, anything but erotic and violent.

3.4.3 A Womans Desire for Transcultural Understanding

While the exploration of sexual desires is one of the primary focuses in In the Eye of the Sun, it is
more subordinated in The Map of Love. When asked whether the role of desire plays an equally
important in both novels, Ahdaf Soueif claims that despite the fact that the theme is not similarly
transparent in both stories, it is still desire that brings all of her characters together (Soueif 1999: 84).
Ahdaf Soueif admits that she has made desire itself no longer the subject under examination in The
Map of Love, while it was certainly the case for In the Eye of the Sun. However transparent this
theme of exploring ones sexual and intellectual desires may or may not be, it is the desire for love
that transcends cultural differences and which connects the female characters in both novels. Layla
from The Map of Love, describes the bond between Anna and Sharif as a love across countries and
seas (ML 351). Asya in In the Eye of the Sun as well as Amal, Anna and even Isabel in The Map of
Love are preoccupied with creating a hybrid identity in which they can make a bridge between
different cultures, whilst never neglecting their native roots. Their desire to make their relationships
work, across cultural, geographical and political boundaries is the most central part of both novels. In
her stories, Ahdaf Soueif suggests that for the modern Arab and Muslim woman, the task is not to
deny conflicts or paradoxes relating to different cultures and beliefs, but to accept, understand and
when possible, blend them (Malak 2000: 147). The love story of Anna and Sharif illustrates this
fantasy vision of cultural exchange between two members of the Egyptian and English elite. After
having experienced the life of a native, Anna ignores presupposed Western stereotypes and
patriarchal images of Arabic people, a condition she had to fulfill before she could fully make the
bridge between her own English culture and her new Egyptian life. Anna is willing to adapt to the life
of the wife of an Egyptian Basha and agrees to accept a new way of living. She tries to create a
hybrid identity where elements of both cultures are compatible and neither one is neglected.

Despite the attempts of Soueif and other contemporary, female, Arab writers to dismantle gender
stereotypes, many people living in the West continue to believe in this misrepresentation of the
Eastern world. Darraj (2002) describes this persisting stereotypical image as followed:
Many Americans continue to purchase wholesale the neatly packaged image of the veiled, meek
Arab woman. This pitiful creature follows her husband like a dark shadow, is forced to remain silent
and obey her husband at all times, is granted a body only to deliver more children, perhaps even in
competition with her husbands other wives. (Darraj 2002)

Darraj further attacks the big sister role which the West now takes upon herself, which wrongly
convinces the West that Egypt and other parts of the Arab world need to be liberated from these
patriarchal practices (Darraj 2002). According to her, the West is now so preoccupied with liberating
these women from the conventionalized roles that the voices that really need to be heard, those of
the subaltern women, are often excluded. However, Ahdaf Soueif and other Arab women have
started a new movement in which the Arab woman does express herself by voicing her thoughts and
feelings on matters dealing with stereotypical images and patriarchal positions. This way, Spivaks
belief in giving the subaltern woman a voice is enforced. In her novels, Ahdaf Soueif is able to
destabilize Western, stereotypical ways of thinking about Egypt and its culture. As a female, Arab
writer, she shows that it is time that the subaltern woman speaks up and she reinforces this pattern
by letting her novels tell the stories of similar women trying to break away from patriarchal
conventions and stereotypes. Ahdaf Soueifs hybrid identity which merges English and Egyptian
cultural elements, allows her to speak on behalf of other Arab women in a Western language. Her
hybridity enables her to shed a different light on the lives of Egyptian women in a manner that is
comprehensible for a Western audience. This way, Ahdaf Soueif gives the subaltern a voice and
illustrates that long-time stereotypical images are no longer maintainable in our contemporary world.

3.5 Dismantling Orientalist Stereotypes

I hope my fiction and my journalism goes against the stereotypes but only because Im
interesting in writing the truth, not because Im interested in writing against Western stereotypes.
(Soueif 2008)

Creating a hybrid identity involves the conception of a self-fulfilling state of being, characterized by a
fusion of elements originating from different cultures. As mentioned in the introduction to this thesis,
Ahdaf Soueif is influenced by the culture of her native country Egypt, while she simultaneously
experiences cultural impacts from England, where she was educated and currently lives. So far, this
thesis has investigated some aspects of Ahdaf Soueifs novels which reveal how the author explores
the Mezzaterra in her fictional writings. I have illustrated how Egyptian and English cultural
influences are vital influencing factors in the construction of the content and formal structure of Ahdaf
Soueifs novels. As a person who travels back and forth between Africa and Europe, Ahdaf Soueif
inhabits both East and West and is recurrently faced with stereotypes that wrongly characterize
either culture. Her exploration of the topic of hybridity in her fiction and nonfiction allows her to have
a clear idea on the stereotypical images that are circulating our contemporary world, therefore the
following segment in this thesis will explore how Ahdaf Soueif dispenses these stereotypes in her
novels In the Eye of the Sun and The Map of Love.

3.5.1 Exoticization in Colonial Times

Vital contributions on the creation of Eastern stereotypes were made by Edward Said and his theory
on Orientalism, in which he links the construction of the image of the sexually immoral Orient to the
colonial era. During its colonial heydays, Victorian England displayed a great interest in the culture of
the Orient and the exotic creatures that inhabited the curious and unfamiliar place. The English
were confronted with a world that differed so greatly from the one they knew and they soon began to
depict the East as a place where sexual practices were no longer tabooed into silence and where
notions such as polygamy and nudity were not exceptional. I have already analyzed how during the
colonial era, the West was fascinated with the Eastern culture but simultaneously created images
that did not depict the Arab world in its authenticity. Before I illustrate how Ahdaf Soueif attacks
Orientalist stereotypes in her novels, a general overview on the implementation of these images and
the manner in which they are perceived is needed. In purpose of this outline, I refer to Leila Ahmed,
who states that for centuries, the Western world has been continually falsifying and vilifying the
Muslim world (Ahmed 1982: 523). Ahmed claims that, during colonial times, the focus on the harem
was accompanied with a mixture of fascination and loathing and resulted in the construction of
stereotypes which wrongfully linked this Arab cultural element with notions such as polygamy, sexual
exploitation and erotic escapades. However, a broader vision on the description of the harem has to
be considered before analyzing the authenticity of such a claim.

Leila Ahmed defines the harem as:

[a] system that permits males sexual access to more than one female. It can also be defined, and
with as much accuracy, as a system whereby the female relatives of a man wives, sisters,
mothers, aunts, daughters share much of their time and their living space, and further, which
enables women to have frequent and easy access to other women in their community, vertically,
across class lines, as well as horizontally. (Ahmed 1982: 524)

Leila Ahmed further claims that early Western accounts of the harem were very gendered and
focused on the first aspect of the definition, which permits a man to have sexual access to more than
one woman, and resulted in the condemnation of the system for its incitement of sexual abundance
and immorality. The second aspect gave rise to the fallacious creation of images and stereotypes
about womens sexual relations with each other within the harem (Ahmed 1982: 524). However
convincing these statements might have sounded, Western men had no imaginable way of access to
harems, therefore their descriptions of this Arab cultural element as an erotic or female place of
shelter, are mainly projections of Western desire (Wynne 2006: 57). Many of these stereotypical
images were brought to the West by Orientalist painters, who depicted the East as a place where
sexual morality was disregarded. In addition to these Orientalist paintings, other stereotypes
concerning the life in Egypt were brought to English readers as fictional writings, such as Arabian
Nights, but also as non-fiction, such as travel literature and memoirs of colonizers, which were also
believed to be less mediated by imagination. Many travel books circulated the Victorian literary
landscape which also implemented the idea of the Eastern, male tyrant and his female, obedient
slaves condemned to sexual practices. Homa Hoodfar (1993: 8), who writes about the
implementation of Orientalist stereotypes in her non-fictional essays, claims that these stereotypes
about Oriental life and about Muslim women were celebrated through numerous travel books which
gained a great reading public in Victorian England. It has already been made clear that postcolonial
theories and academics try to unravel these stereotypical images of the Orient which were brought
to Europe under colonial influences and which applauded the idea of necessary civilization within the
culture of the colonized. The popularity of such literature supported the colonial cause, since

[t]he primary mission of these writings was to depict the colonized Arabs/Muslims as
inferior/backwards who were urgently in need for progress offered to them by the colonial superiors.
It is in this political context that the veil, and the Muslim harem as the world of women, emerged as a
source of fascination, fantasy, and frustration for Western writers. Harems were supposed to be
places where Muslim men imprisoned their wives, who had nothing to do except to beautify
themselves and cater to their husbands huge sexual appetites. [] Women are invariably depicted
as prisoners, frequently half naked and unveiled and at times sitting at windows with bars, with little
hope of ever being free. (Hoodfar 1993: 8)

These accounts of the harem and the Eastern women that belonged to it were brought to Europe by
male colonizers, writers and painters, despite the fact that, as men they would never have had
access to the closed quarters, or prisons, of Arab women. Their reports did not depict the reality of
the harem and its inhabiting women.

3.5.2 Exoticization in Contemporary Times

In several interviews, Ahdaf Soueif makes clear that she is aware of the ongoing tendency in the
West to think of the East in a stereotypical manner that links the place with sexual escapades and
brutal tyrants, a process also referred to as exoticization (Soueif 1999: 86). Her awareness of this
process only began long after she started to read and write fiction. Ahdaf Soueif learned to read
during her stay in England, which means that the stories that were given to her as a child were
Anglophone books. Some of these tales were about the Arabic world but originated from an English
hand. Ahdaf Soueif admits that for a long time, even at the beginning of her writing career, she was
not aware of the politics of reception and the exotic way in which the West imagined the East. She
even admits that the first stories she ever wrote, The Wedding of Zeina and Her Man, which were
later published in the collection of short stories Aisha (1983), were tales that [presented] Egypt or
the East in terms that perhaps the West is comfortable with: as a world that is very traditional, very
close to magic, ritualistic, a little brutal, and very sensual our world as perceived by aficionados of
the Arabian Nights (Soueif 1999: 86). She links the immediate success of these stories, in which the
reader is confronted with the gruesome rape of an Egyptian newlywed on her wedding night and the
jealousy of an Egyptian wife who tricks her husbands second wife into her own bed, to the desires
of the West. Ahdaf Soueif claims that these early stories affirmed the stereotypical images of
immoral sexual behavior and barbarous practices in Egypt, because that was the Eastern world that
the West was comfortable with and wanted to read about (Soueif 1999: 86). Ahdaf Soueifs
awareness of the politics of reception and the process of stereotyping in the West, which traditionally
link the East with immorality and exoticism, relates to the importance she attributes to the topic in her
fictional novels. The following section of this thesis will illustrate how Ahdaf Soueif has grown from
an author relatively unaware of Western exoticization of the Orient, to a writer who carefully explores
the theme of stereotyping in her first novel, and more emphatically in her second book.

Both Joseph Massad (1999) and Shao-Pin Luo (2003) claim that Ahdaf Soueif is apprehensive of
the journalistic interest that the West displays in the Arab world, but which does not aspire to
enhance a cultural dialogue, rather it focuses on exoticizing the Arab and Muslim Other (Massad
1999: 79; Luo 2003: 100). This ongoing battle with exoticizing stereotypes is illustrated in In the Eye
of the Sun and The Map of Love through recurring topics which display Soueifs interest in
dismantling these exotic images. In The Map of Love, when Amal is firstly contacted by Isabel, an
American journalist, she is cautious of what the topic of the conversation will be: the
fundamentalists, the veil, the cold peace, polygamy, womens status in Islam, female genital
mutilation (ML 6). The West can only think of the East in notions that link the place with political
danger and gender oppression. Massad (1999) further claims that it is in fact Ahdaf Soueifs aim to
destroy the stereotypes which the West has over the East, however, Soueif admits that she herself
struggles with this labeling. In an interview with Carr, she explains how she is confronted with the
ongoing process of stereotyping: A couple of weeks ago somebody said to me that something I had
done goes against a stereotype and I said to her, how long is this going to carry on being a
stereotype? There are so many people working now so much evidence that stereotypes of Arabs,
and in particular Muslim women, are false (Soueif 2008).

3.5.3 Orientalist Stereotyping in In the Eye of the

Sun(1992)and The Map of Love (1999)
Ahdaf Soueif utilizes her novels to illustrate that many stereotypes Western people hold over the
East are falsely constructed and do not display the contemporary Arab woman in a truthful light. The
first novel that Ahdaf Soueif has written tells the story of a young Egyptian girl who finds herself
trapped between different stereotypes, expressed by the men she meets. In addition to the
implementation of patriarchal images which she has to endure, Asya also struggles with the
exoticization of the Eastern culture, an act effectuated by Gerald, whose wishes and exclamations
implement the very exotic stereotypes and fantasies which were brought to the West during colonial
times. Despite the fact that Asya initiates the affair with Gerald, Ahdaf Soueif makes it clear it is in
fact him who is the sexual imperialist (ES 723) and who desperately holds on to Orientalist
stereotypes which depict Asya as an exotic creature. Asya starts to recognize his behavior when he
wants her to unclothe, let down her hair and wear nothing but jewelry. On occasion, she even
confronts him with his Orientalist fantasies by asking if he wants her to be his odalisque or his
concubine, a female slave (ES 563). At the end of the novel, she is fully aware of Geralds ongoing
quest for control over her and other exotic women and confronts him with his acts:

Why have all your girl-friends been from developing countries? [] Youve never had a white girl-
friend. [] The reason youve gone for Trinidad Vietnam Egypt is so you can feel superior.
You can be the big, white boss you are a sexual imperialist. [] You pretend to yourself as well
that its because you dont notice race or its because these cultures retain some spiritual quality
lost to the West you pride yourself that you dance like a black man but thats just phoney. (ES
723)

At this point in the novel, Asya is ready to take control of her own life and disregard the images that
the men in her life want her to be, namely the good, silent Arab wife and the exotic, sexual slave.
She refuses to be stuck in the fantasy of a man and play the stereotypical role he wants her to
portray.

In addition to the patriarchal images that Saif reinforces in his marriage to Asya, his behavior
illustrates that he is also fully aware of the ongoing exoticization of the Orient by the West, an
awareness which leads him to falsely reaffirming these stereotypes. According to Darraj, Saif
succumbs to orientalist embellishments to please his Western associates (Darraj 2003: 98). When
English friends ask Asya and Saif how they met, he neglects to tell the true story of their meeting on
the steps of a college library in Egypt and instead claims that they met during a political
demonstration, therefore pleasing his Western audience by exoticizing the story. This example
illustrates Saifs awareness of the exotic stereotypes in which the West imagines the East, but he
does not try to demolish them, rather he chooses to confirm them, which means he has to lie about
reality so that the truth is disregarded and stereotypes are repeated. Saif is the Egyptian man who is
aware of the exotic way in which the Arabic world is imagined, but who neglects to dismantle these
false representations, Gerald Stone characterizes the Western archetype that is found guilty of
creating them.

While Ahdaf Soueif has already displayed her concern for the act of Orientalist stereotyping in In the
Eye of the Sun, the theme is much more present in her second novel The Map of Love. Part of this
growing exploration of exoticization of the East is explained by the temporal setting of Ahdaf Soueifs
second book. This novel moves between stories, one set at the end of the nineteenth century, when
Egypt was under English control, and the other set at the closing stages of the twentieth century.
While Egypt belonged to the British empire, it was not uncommon for English citizens to travel to the
Orient and bring back accounts which wrongfully depicted the place they had visited. Since it is
partially set in that particular era, The Map of Love allows Ahdaf Soueif to freely explore the topic of
Orientalist stereotyping.

When analyzing Ahdaf Soueifs approach to these stereotypes in her second novel, it is essential to
begin that particular discussion with the physical and psychological actions and thoughts of one of
the main characters, namely Anna Winterbourne and, more specifically, her view on traditional
notions concerning East and West. At the onset of her story, Anna is a soon-to-be widowed lady
living in Victorian England who is trying to cope with her husbands mental disposition. Wanting to
help him overcome his illness, but unable to do so, Anna takes her worries outside of her home and
begins to take strolls which eventually lead her to the South Kensington Museum where she
becomes familiar with John Frederick Lewis paintings. In these watercolor paintings, Lewis depicted
traditional Eastern scenes, such as a harem, but he refused to shed them in the traditional light
which Western viewers were used to. According to Ahdaf Soueif, Lewis was the only Orientalist
painter that captured the truth about the spirit of the place (Soueif 2008), and therefore disregarded
traditional stereotypes of the Orient. Darraj echoes Ahdaf Soueifs claim and argues that, despite the
fact that Lewis showed the East in a truthful way, the many references to these paintings and Annas
reference to the British translation of Arabian Nights indicate[] how deeply England was drowning in
its culture of orientalism a culture that allowed the English to imagine the Arabs as exotic other,
and thus as people who lacked morals and dignity (Darraj 2003: 102). In The Map of Love, Ahdaf
Soueif returns to these traditional Victorian ways in which the West depicted the East and its culture.
Ahdaf Soueif begins her novel by encountering a meeting between a prototypical Victorian lady and
the characters in Lewis paintings of the Orient. On the one hand, Ahdaf Soueif utilizes Annas
fascination with Orientalist paintings to illustrate the Wests preoccupation with Oriental life in Egypt,
but on the other hand, the use of Lewis as a painter who tried to paint the East in its most truthful
way exposes Soueifs wish to criticize other Victorian artists who only sought to establish Eastern
stereotypes.

Annas struggle to look beyond stereotypes is not only influenced by Lewis paintings, since she also
has a close relationship with her beau-pre who displays an anti-imperial way of thinking, unlike
some of the other British characters which Anna meets. After the death of her English husband,
Anna travels to Egypt to see whether or not she can find the scenes as shown in her beloved
paintings in real life. According to Luo (2003), Anna thinks at the beginning of her stay in Egypt in a
rather stereotypical manner. He claims that the first impressions of Egypt that she shares with the
reader are superficial and romantic (Luo 2003: 90). Luos claim is illustrated by the following
extract from The Map of Love in which Soueif describes Annas first impression of the Bazaar she
visits:

It is exactly as I have pictured it; the merchandise so abundant, the colours so bold, the smells so
distinct no, I had not pictured the smells indeed could not have but they are so of a piece with
the whole scene: the shelves and shelves of aromatic oils, the sacks of herbs and spices, their
necks rolled down to reveal small hills of smooth red henna, lumpy ginger stems, shiny black carob
sticks, all letting off heir spicy, incensy perfume into the air. It is quite overwhelming. (ML 67)

Although Annas first impression of Egypt is rather traditional and based upon stereotypes, the
reader soon realizes that The Map of Love does not tell the story of a prototypical colonizer who
travels to a foreign country to experience the exotic culture of the colonized. During her stay in
Egypt, Anna oftentimes criticizes fellow-Europeans who have undertaken the same distant journey
to the African land, only to stay within the safe world they have always known and therefore maintain
their stereotypical manner of looking at the foreign country. She even pours judgment on her travel
company and refuses to travel with a tour group in Suez, because then, as she admits to Sharif: I
[Anna] would have remained within the world I knew. I would have seen things through my
companions eyes, and my mind would have been too occupied in resisting their impressions to
establish its own (ML 212). At one point in the novel, Anna even refers to Victorian travel literature,
namely a Thomas Cook tourist handbook to Egypt, and criticizes it because it only depicts the
beauty of the land while disregarding its inhabitants.

When we first meet Anna Winterbourne in Ahdaf Soueifs The Map of Love, we meet a young,
Victorian woman who is, just as her contemporary fellow man, smitten by the Orient and its exotic
culture. However, the fact that Ahdaf Soueif has chosen Lewis as the main awakener of her
admiration for the East illustrates how Anna is not just any other Western European who firmly
believed the stereotypes which circulated at that time, since Lewis was one of the few Orientalist
painters who captured the reality of the East in his paintings, without endorsing stereotypical images.
Even Anna herself admits to being inspired by Frederick Lewis: When I found those wonderful
paintings by Frederick Lewis, I had, I believe, some sense of divine ordination. And when the day
came and it was deemed proper that I should travel, it seemed the most natural thing in the world
that my thoughts would turn to Egypt (ML101). Once arrived in Egypt, British-born Anna feels as if
she has fallen in one of Lewis beloved paintings (ML134). Luo (2003: 91) goes so far as in
suggesting that Anna uses the same language in describing her first image of Layla as one would
describe Lewis paintings, by using many references to different shades of colors:

She was Egyptian, and a lady the first I had seen without the black cloak and the veil. She had
pulled a cover of black silk up to her waist, her chemise above that was the purest white, and then
again, her hair vied with the silken cover for the depth and luster of its black. Her skin was the colour
of gently toasted chestnut, and she lay on cushions of deep emerald and blue, and the whole
tableau was framed, yet again, by the lattice of a mashrabiyya. (ML 134)

Soueif chose to make Orientalist painter John Frederick Lewis the biggest person of influence in
Annas decision to travel to Egypt because she believes that of all the painters who visited the East
in the nineteenth century, he was the one who ignored colonial stereotypes. In an article which
Soueif wrote for The Guardian, she expresses her admiration by admitting that

[o]f all the oriental paintings I [Soueif] had come across, only those of Lewis beckoned me in. At the
simplest level, the world he shows is a happy one, filled with sunlight, people, animals, flowers, food.
But something else is transmitted from his surfaces: empathy. Lewis lived in Cairo for 10 years, and
went native in adopting Egyptian dress. But that wasn't it. Edward Lane did the same, and I find his
work unreadable. [] Lewis's truth, expressed in colour and brushstrokes, was a truth about the
spirit of the place. (Soueif 2008)

The first painting from Lewis hand to be exhibited in Britain was The Hhareem, a picture which,
according to Soueif, gave his audience everything they desired: a slave-dealer displays a prize
beauty to an oriental nobleman surrounded by his wives and attendants (Soueif 2008). The reason
for this was that Lewis was afraid of being fired from the Society of Painters in Watercolours.
However, Soueif claims that despite giving the people what they wanted to see, he was already
rebelling against the traditional, colonial, stereotypical vision of the harem, since in Lewis portrayal
of the harem the master of the house, far from being the lascivious cruel Turk of tradition, has a
young fresh face, full of wonder; his new acquisition has something of a defiant stance, and the
description places the painting firmly in the past, in Mamluk times. It declares itself a fantasy (Soueif
2008). Ahdaf Soueif does not hesitate to express her admiration for this British Orientalist painter
who defied conventional stereotypes of the East. However, not all critics see in this reference to the
Orientalist paintings of Frederick John Lewis a blameless or positive connection. Wynne claims that
Lewis, as a male European, would not have had access to the harem and that his portrayal of a
typical Egyptian scene was only made possible because of British occupation of the East (Wynne
2006: 62). Wynne argues that:
Soueifs deployment of Lewis as the inspiration of Annas lived experience draws the text within the
very problematic of what she is seeking to escape. [] Lewis paintings are made possible by
European control of the East, but Lewis as an English male would not have access to harems. By
drawing on Lewis, Soueif reinscribes traditional discourses of the Orient. Annas Egyptian years are
both familiar and foreign, a recreation of an image that is first encountered in a museum by an
English Orientalist painter. (Wynne 2006: 62)

Annas initial admiration for Egyptian life was born out of her excitement for watercolors which could
only be painted because of colonial power of Britain in the East. In this way, her journey to Egypt
was based upon a desire to see this exotic place and was only made possible because of British
occupation. However, Soueif convinces the reader that Anna is not any other European aristocrat
characterized by a compelling belief in the colonial mission. After having entered Egypt, Anna
realizes that there is more to the country and its culture than portrayed by its Western visitors.

Anna Winterbourne is inspired by real Victorian women who traveled to Egypt and wrote down their
observations in books which were later published. According to Luo it was traditionally seen very
uncommon for a woman to leave her native home to travel to a foreign country, as it was even less
common for a woman to pick up her pen and write about her experiences (Luo 2003: 83). Luo
indicates that the discourses on Western people traveling to the East were gendered, describing the
act of travelling as something only men should do, since in the Victorian era, it was very uncommon
for a woman to leave behind her home to travel to distant shores. In The Map of Love, Ahdaf Soueif
clarifies that Anna was greatly influenced by that limited number of Victorian women who undertook
the journey to Egypt and who tried to find themselves within the Eastern culture, neglecting
stereotypical ways of thinking. Anna is inspired by the life and the writings of Lady Lucy Duff Gordon
and Lady Anne Blunt, who, just as Anna, traveled to Egypt and learned about Eastern native life.
Anna even steps into the footsteps of Lady Blunt when she dresses up as a man to travel the Sinai.
The more she learns about Egyptian life, the more she wants to deepen herself within that Eastern
culture. Despite the descriptions which are given to Anna by her fellow countrymen of the Agency,
which display Mr. Blunt in a negative light, she still expresses her curiosity to meet him:

But I hear them [English officials of the Agency in Egypt] mention Mr. Blunt, who holds views
identical to those of my beau-pre, and whom they regard as a crank who chooses to live in the
desert, and they use of him the phrase gone over by which I assume they mean he sees matters
from a different point of view. I own I am curious to see Mr. Blunt []. (ML 70)

Anna disregards traditional and stereotypical ways of thinking about the Orient and expresses her
desire to really perceive and experience the authentic Egyptian culture. One of the most striking
passages that establishes Annas refusal to believe in stereotypes which represent Eastern men as
brutes is her thoughts on her abduction by Egyptian nationalists. Misled by Annas disguise, the
abductors think they have kidnapped an English man instead of a woman and take her to Sharif
Bashas sister Layla. The reader might guess that any other traditional Victorian, English lady would
be terrified to death but Anna appears to be fearless as illustrated by her thoughts only moments
after her abduction. Even later in the novel, after their engagement, Sharif asks Anna whether or not
she was frightened by him when they first met, a question which she merely answers with What was
there to be afraid of? (ML 153). Though she is not influenced by a stereotypical way of thinking of
the Orient, she is aware of this Western fantasy which portrays Egypt as an exotic and dangerous
place. Even Egyptian Sharif is aware of the portrayal of him and his fellow countrymen in Western
literature, as shown in the following excerpt:

[Sharif] Werent you afraid of me? The wicked Pasha who would lock you up in his harem and do
terrible things to you? [Anna] What terrible things? [Sharif] You should know. Theyre in your
English stories. (ML 154)

This extract is an example of how Soueif tries to dismantle stereotypes which were already present
and distributed in the colonial era and are still very common today. This is also a claim made by
Darraj who argues that Soueif wishes to speak back to the colonialist vision of the Arab in order to
correct it (Darraj 2003: 103). Annas friendship with Sharifs sister Layla, allows her to deepen
herself even more into her beloved paintings of Lewis. Because of her close friendship with the
Egyptian woman, Anna is allowed to see the inside of a harem, an act which was very uncommon
for an English woman. In The Map of Love, Soueif gives a description of the harem as seen through
the eyes of Anna and her representation of this Egyptian element goes against stereotypes which
have traditionally depicted the harem as something overly erotic and immoral. Instead, we
experience the harem as a place where women live harmoniously side by side, talking about their
daily occupations and their families. After Annas marriage to Egyptian Sharif, Annas friend Caroline
expects her to deliver a detailed rendering of life in the harem, but Anna is reluctant to do this, as
she claims I find in myself a strange unwillingness to provide a detailed picture of life in the Harem
(ML 354). She does not want to convey an account on something sacred which has become part of
her new life in Egypt, but which has also been the cause for stereotypical exoticization in the West.
Carolines question to give details and Annas reference to it as if it were merely another chapter in a
Western book on Eastern habits that the English are so eager to read about, establishes once more
Englands ongoing preoccupation with exotic Egypt. However, Anna also admits that she, as an
Englishwoman who is now a member of an Egyptian harem, could give a true account and dismantle
stereotypes, as she suggests that it is only then, [] that she [Caroline] would gain a true picture of
my life here (ML 354).

While there are many references to the dismissal of stereotypes of the Orient, there is at one
occasion an indication of an Egyptian character that has to reconsider her opinion on English
people. Anna is not the only one who has to rethink the ethics of some stereotypes of Egyptian life
which are circulating in her home country. Layla also reevaluates her initial way of thinking about the
English, once she has met Anna. She is astonished that Anna displays none of the arrogance or the
coldness she and her family were used to find in her countrymen, even to the effect that she almost
forgot that she was English (ML 372). Despite different backgrounds, Layla and Anna become close
friends who can look beyond stereotypes.

Soueif attacks the problem of the stereotypes in The Map of Love by cleverly reversing this
exoticization process. At a given point in the novel, Anna wants to look beyond the limited view
which her English countrymen have over Egypt and which is restricted for tourists. She wants to truly
see and experience the country, but in order to do so, she has to dress up as an Arab woman. When
she is disguised as an Egyptian woman who is wearing the veil, she experiences that not only are
her looks transformed but so are her perceptions as well as those of others toward her (Massad
1999: 82). When she passes some of the people she knows from the Agency at the train station,
roles are reversed, and this time she sees them as the Other, as shown in the following extract:

I felt at once the fear of being discovered and the strangeness of their sweeping by me without
acknowledgement but the oddest thing of all was that I suddenly saw them as bright, exotic
creatures, walking in a kind of magical space, oblivious to all around them; at ease, chattering to
each other as though they were out for a stroll in the park, while the people, pushed aside, watched
and waited for them to pass. [] Nobody could find out who I was. I was one of many black-clad
harem in the station and on the train and could have traded places with several of them and no one
been the wiser. (ML 194-195)

This can be linked directly with Homi K. Bhabhas theory of hybridity, which he links with the
superiority of the already cultured. Annas fellow-European citizens consider themselves as the
ones that are cultured and civilized, so they are oblivious to everything of the Arabic culture that
surrounds them. The fragment described above forms a fitting conclusion to the discussion of Ahdaf
Soueifs approach to Orientalist stereotyping in her fictional novels. Not only does she dismiss
traditional ways of looking at the Orient as a sexually immoral place, she even succeeds in reversing
the pattern of looking at it in an exotic way, by allowing a Western character to describe her fellow
countrymen as exotic creatures (ML 194).

3.6 Language
[I write in English because] I cant write in anything else. My Arabic is good enough for daily
purposes articles, reports, but to write fiction you need a different level of being able to
manipulate language. What youre doing is creating effects. (Soueif 2008)

A confrontational issue that plays a significant role in the distribution and the appreciation of the
published work of postcolonial authors such as Ahdaf Soueif, is the language in which these writings
are delivered to their reading audiences. Hybridity focuses on the merger of two different cultures,
often the union of Eastern and Western cultivations and as consequence, these hybrid authors often
speak, in addition to their mother tongue, one or more second languages. As mentioned before,
Ahdaf Soueif writes non-fictional articles in both languages, which is illustrated by her job working as
a journalist for English newspaper The Guardian and for Egyptian paper Al-Ahram. This alternating
pattern which commits her to two different newspapers published in two different countries exposes
Ahdaf Soueifs ability to move between different languages. The question which is then remained
unanswered is why Soueifs fictional novels are written and published in English. I will explore Ahdaf
Soueifs decision to create and write fictional stories in the English language. In addition, I will
demonstrate how she incorporates the issue of language into her novels In the Eye of the Sun and
The Map of Love by revealing how Soueifs characters are constantly aware of the problematic
notion of language.
3.6.1 English as a Language for Fiction
Ahdaf Soueifs novels recite the stories of young women who have a close connection to the Arab
and the English world. While her first novel, In the Eye of the Sun, takes a young, Arab girl out of the
heart of Egypt and transfers her to England, Soueifs second novel tells the story of an English
widow who finds a chance to lead a new life in Egypt. Since both stories deal with English and
Egyptian characters and cultures, Ahdaf Soueif was faced with the opportunity to write them in either
English or Arabic, however, she did not decide to compose her stories in her mother tongue, instead
she chose to write them in the second language that she learned, namely English. Soueifs decision
to write fiction in English proved to be a matter of convenience, since it was only as the result of her
failure to write stories in Arabic that she turned to her second language. In an interview with Massad,
Soueif explains how she came to write her novels in English and not Arabic as followed:

I had sat down to write, and I had assumed that I was going to write in Arabic. But the words didnt
come, the Arabic didnt happen for me, the words came in English. That was the area where I was
struggling. I kept trying to write in Arabic, because I hadnt thought that I would write in English.
Eventually, it was a choice between writing in English or not writing at all, so I wrote in English.
(Soueif 1999: 86)

This quote illustrates how Ahdaf Soueifs decision to write in a particular language is confrontational
and oftentimes problematic for hybrid authors who have different languages at their disposal. It was
Soueifs initial intention to write her stories in her mother tongue but the only achievable way to
create fiction was to type out her words in English. Her final decision to write and publish her novels
in English has its advantages, as well as its drawbacks, since as an Egyptian-born native, writing in
the language of the former colonizers, she is able to clarify and focus attention on the many
questionable accounts of the Orient which were brought to Europe during the colonial era. As an
Egyptian native writing in English, Ahdaf Soueif is able to dismantle these stories and the
stereotypes that were created and give a true account on life and culture in the Orient.

A second and equally significant advantage that writing in English gives Ahdaf Soueif is the ability to
distance herself from delicate, Egyptian matters. An Arab, female author who decides to use English
as a medium for telling stories about Egypt, dissociates herself from the Eastern field, which enables
her to consider things from a neutral viewpoint. Malak claims that Ahdaf Soueifs hybridized English
allows the conscious feminist narrative voice to infiltrate taboo terrains, both sexual and political, that
might be inaccessible when handled in Arabic (Malak 2000: 161). He further argues that, because
Soueif is dissociated emotionally and culturally from her native country, English proves to be a
liberating medium to the author to broach and delve into issues such as feminine sexuality, politics
of power and gender, and the disfranchisement of the poor: English here accords a liberating lexical
storehouse and semantic sanctuary (Malak 2000: 161). Not only is the subaltern woman, as
described by Spivak, given a voice to tell her story, but by telling it in English, Ahdaf Soueif is also
able to write about confrontational issues relating to sex and politics. In the discussion of
postcolonial theories in this thesis, it was discussed how Spivak argues that the subaltern often has
to moderate his words to a mediated Western model, and therefore will never be actually heard.
However, it is important to claim that Ahdaf Soueifs choice to write in English puts her at a distance
from the controversial issues in Egyptian culture and enables her to write about them.

3.6.2 The Issue of Language and the Powers of

Translation in In the Eye of the Sun (1992)and The Map
of Love(1999)
As described above, the issue of language proves to be a significant matter for hybrid writers such
as Ahdaf Soueif, a theme which is also integrated in her novels In the Eye of the Sun and The Map
of Love. In these books, Soueifs characters seem to embody the authors preoccupation with the
notion of language and the oftentimes problematic issues that come along with translation. In
Soueifs first novel, Asya is often asked to translate certain passages from Arabic songs and letters
into English. The same question is presented to Amal in The Map of Love, while Anna is asked to
translate English letters into Arabic. In passages where songs, texts and letters are translated into
another language, Ahdaf Soueif cleverly moves between two languages and transforms English into
Arabic and Arabic into English in revolutionary ways (Massad 1999: 75). One of the best examples
that illustrates Ahdaf Soueifs ability to render Arabic phrases into English without neglecting
syntactic constraints is from In the Eye of the Sun, in which Asya renders translations of songs sung
in her native language as May the rest be in your life or God give earrings to those without ears
(Massad 1999: 75). These are sentences which do not display much meaning to a contemporary,
English reader, but they are understandable and they are able to render some of the richness of the
Arabic language and how it works.

In the Eye of the Sun and The Map of Love are novels that give the female characters a sense of
empowerment by giving them the ability to switch between languages. Therefore, the notions of
language and translation are powerful tools in the establishment of cultural dialogue between
different nationalities. In the Eye of the Sun recites the story of Asya who is confronted with
stereotypical ways of thinking about the East and women, as embodied by the different men that she
meets. This novel illustrates that knowledge of different languages is an instrument of power. After
she has started an affair with the American Gerald Stone, Asya receives three letters, one from her
friend Chrissie, another from her father and the last from a European acquaintance. Gerald demands
that he should be the one to open the envelopes and read the letters before Asya can. Asyas hopes
that the letters are written in Arabic are partly answered, since two of them are written by Egyptian
natives. Despite Geralds imperialist desire to possess all that has an exotic origin, he is limited in his
knowledge of the topics that matter, such as language. Since he cannot speak or read Arabic, he
demands that Asya translates the letters in English. The politics of power are reversed, because
Asyas knowledge of the Arabic language puts her in the position of the superior. She realizes that
language has given her a sense of empowerment that she can use to deceive this Western
usurper. Soueif describes in In the Eye of the Sun how Asya reads one thing, but says another to
mislead the person who tries to take control over her life. Her knowledge of both languages helps
her to retain and reclaim some elements of her life which Gerald tries to take control of, or as Darraj
sees it: She limits his knowledge of her life through lingual and narrative control (Darraj 2003: 100).
The theme of power that language offers is also explored in The Map of Love. Several years into
their marriage, Anna is asked by Sharif to translate a letter which was forwarded to Lord Cromer by
one of his spies as an English translation of an original Arabic letter exposing the details of a
national uprising. At this point in the novel, Soueif explores the lingual capacities of her hybrid
upbringing and her knowledge of multiple languages by inserting, not only double, but also triple
layers of translation in the text of the novel. Anna has to translate into French the English translation
of a letter which was, supposedly, originally written in Arabic. These levels of translation expose
Ahdaf Soueifs belief in the concept of language as an important instrument of power. Annas
knowledge of both languages makes them realize that the letter never originated from an Arabic
hand, it was composed by an Englishman who thinks that Arabs write in that manner. Even when
Sharif has the letter translated back into Arabic, they realize that the letter was just a misleading
device to support Lord Cromers request for reinforcements in Egypt. Ridiculous sentences from the
letter such as May all the odour of these greetings be upon you (ML 417) and Why do the camels
march so slowly? Are they bearing stone or iron? (ML 419) illustrate that the letter was written by an
Englishman and sent to Lord Cromer, pretending that they received it from one of their Egyptian
spies. However, Sharif and Anna realize that the letter was the work of an ignorant Englishman who
imagines he knows how Arabs think (ML 419).

In The Map of Love, language as a medium for communication between different nationalities proves
to be a significant but not automatically problematic issue. Lady Anna Winterbourne is an English
Victorian lady who travels to Egypt where she falls in love with Sharif. Neither of them is educated
enough in the language of the other person, so they decide to converse in French, since this
language is the least biased. This example illustrates a situation where two people neglect their
mother tongue and choose to communicate in a second language in order to enable a better and
less prejudiced understanding. As Saif claims: Perhaps that is better. You make more effort, you
make sure you understand and are understood. Sometimes I think, because we use the same
words, we assume we mean the same things (ML 272). It appears as if Soueif suggests that in a
situation where communication between two different language users is needed, the most efficient
way to enable this lingual contact is when both parties ignore their first languages and choose a
language they both have in common. Once again, this example illustrates Ahdaf Soueifs belief in a
common ground where different cultures can meet, without the oppression or superiority of one
single culture.

Although the English and Egyptian characters in The Map of Love have found a way to communicate
in French, Anna establishes a great willingness to learn the linguistic workings of the Arabic
language. In the novel, there are many examples of conversations between Anna and Layla where
they explore the etymology of Arabic words. This pattern of an Egyptian woman educating a
Westernized character on the workings of the Arabic language is repeated over a century later,
when Isabel is taught Arabic by Amal. Massad claims that one of the most important elements that
Ahdaf Soueif uses to establish a cultural dialogue is her creative use of etymology in explaining
Arabic words, which constitutes one of the many delicate pleasures that the novel offers the reader
(Massad 1999: 80). In these passages, Soueif cleverly incorporates stereotypical images with
language issues as illustrated in the following excerpt from The Map of Love. Isabel and Amal study
the linguistic similarity between the Arabic words for mother (Umm), nation (Ummah) and religious
leader (Imam) and they realize that these words are closely connected. Isabel reasons: So two
incredibly important concepts, [] nationhood and religious leadership, come from mother. The
word goes into politics, religion, economics and even anatomy. So how can they say Arabic is a
patriarchal language? (ML 165). In this extract, Isabel realizes that the etymologic origin of words
that have a positive connotation is often connected with a feminine root (Malak 2000: 158).

All of the examples described above illustrate Ahdaf Soueifs ongoing awareness of the power of
language and translation. Therefore, it is not a surprise that the closing lines of The Map of Love
deal with the problematic issues that the act of translating encounters. Amal has finished puzzling
the pieces of Annas life back together and the end of her ancestors attempt at living a hybrid life
makes her wonder about her own life. She realizes that her job of translating novels is a difficult
process, since it is oftentimes impossible to capture the whole meaning of an element in one single
word, as explained in the following extract:

[Amal] has translated novels- or done her best to translate them. It is so difficult to truly translate
from one language into another, from one culture into another; almost impossible really. Take that
concept tarab, for example; a paragraph of explanation for something as simple as a breath, a
lifting of the heart, tarab, mutrib, shabby, tereb, tarabatta, tarabattattee, Taroob, Jamal wa Taroob:
etmanni mniyyah / Ive wished / westanni alayyah / Ive waited / iddili lmiyyah / Ive counted [] .
(ML 313)

Despite the critical appraisal that Soueif has received for her marvelous attempt at explaining the
linguistic and syntactic workings of the Arabic language and the passages that deal with translation,
she seems to suggest that the act of translating embodies more than simply finding a suitable
alternative in another language. Language is a powerful element that embodies elements from the
culture to which it belongs, which makes it barely impossible to translate into another language that
belongs to a different culture.

3.7 The Future of Hybrids

This thesis has investigated several aspects of Ahdaf Soueifs writing style that illustrate the authors
personal interest in the concept of hybridity. So far, I analyzed textual and content related elements
of her two novels, In the Eye of the Sun and The Map of Love, which have indicated that Soueif
integrates elements from her Arabic and English heritage in her writings. This concluding section of
the analysis of her novels will investigate what future the author upholds for people wound up in a
hybrid context. Both novels recite the story of young women who try to merge elements from an
Egyptian and an English culture in order to create a self fulfilling hybrid identity. The question that
will be explored in this section of the analysis is whether these female characters in In the Eye of the
Sun and The Map of Love succeed in their purpose and create an identity that fully commits them to
a fusion of different cultures and whether such an identity is possible to survive in a contemporary
context.
In the Eye of the Sun tells the coming-of-age story of a young Egyptian woman who moves back and
forth between Egypt and England. Asya overcomes her struggle with patriarchal conventions and
Orientalist stereotypes by escaping the men in her life that implement these images. The first
elements that suggest that Asya is constructing a hybrid identity, appear after she has made the
decision to get a Ph.D. in England. Saif does not accompany her on her journey to Europe, which
means that she has to find a way to live in the foreign country on her own. At the beginning, it
appears as if Ahdaf Soueif suggests that Asyas travelling to England was not a brilliant idea. As
Asya is the main character, the reader gets to know all her thoughts and feelings on living alone in a
foreign country. As she writes her friend Chrissie, she admits [that] people were right to look
doubtful about this place. Its so cold, oh Crissie, its so cold. Im always cold (ES 335). She makes
it clear that England is only a place where she will live momentarily, [Asya] But in the end, Im going
home. Ive got a job at home. Im only here on study leave (ES 323). These exclamations make
clear that Asya never intended to stay in Europe, since she has always had the idea to return to her
mother country as soon as her Ph.D. was finished. This is also what happens once she has rid
herself from the oppressive, male figures that so far determined her life. After finally having earned
her Ph.D., she moves back to Egypt to teach at the Cairene University.

In The Map of Love, the cross-cultural relationship between Sharif and Anna is explored in a
political, historical and geographical context, hoping that their love for one another will overcome
these boundaries. This quest for a hybrid identity parallels Annas ongoing love and respect for both
her fathers-in law. Throughout her stay in Egypt, Anna continues to write to her anti-colonial father-
in-law by her first marriage in England, Sir Charles, while at the same time she occasionally turns to
the ex-revolutionary al-Baroudi bey, Sharifs father, for advice. This special relationship which Anna
maintains with both men, each symbolizing either the West or the East, is paralleled with Amals
emotional closeness and attachment to the fellaheen in her home village, while she simultaneously
keeps in touch with Isabel, an American woman. Amal even goes so far in bringing the West,
illustrated by Isabel, to the heart of Egypt by asking her to accompany her on her visit to her home
town.

However, at the end of Annas story in The Map of Love, the differences between cultures seem to
take the upper hand, since the hybrid family is dispersed because of Sharifs murder and Anna has
to return to her native country with her child, leaving behind her Egyptian family and friends. Ahdaf
Soueif remains ambiguous on the identities of the plotters behind Sharifs assassination, however,
his murder reminds Anna of the fact that she will always be an English outsider in Egypt and that the
construction of a hybrid identity was a mere fantasy which she could only experience very briefly.
While Anna and Sharifs love ends dramatically in tragedy, Ahdaf Soueif suggests that a similar fate
might be awaiting the new hybrid family constructed a century after Annas. The contemporary story
of the novel focuses on another hybrid family, namely, Isabels relationship with Omar, Amals
brother, which has resulted in the birth of a son, Sharif. Davis suggests that Amals new family
parallels Annas tapestry, woven over a hundred years before and represents her own transnational
union (Davis 2007: 21). Once again, Ahdaf Soueif remains ambiguous about the precise
circumstances on Omars probable death, since the novel ends with Amal waking up in the middle of
the night, feeling that something bad will happen to her brother, without exactly saying what. The
reader can find the constitution of a new hybrid family in the special relationship between Amal,
Isabel and her son, baby Sharif, two branches of one family tree that are brought together one
century after they were separated by a murder. As I have argued before, this might suggest that
during the colonial era, when Egypt was still under British occupation, the exact conditions for a
Mezzaterra were not yet established, since power relations saw one culture as superior to another.
In our contemporary context, such hybridity is possible, as illustrated by the friendship between
English-Egyptian Amal, American Isabel and her American-Egyptian baby.

4. Conclusion
The aim of this thesis was to study the different manners in which English-Egyptian author Ahdaf
Soueif explores the concept of hybridity in her fictional novels In the Eye of the Sun (1992)and The
Map of Love(1999). By integrating significant notions of postcolonial studies by Homi K. Bhabha,
Edward Said and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, I have tried to conduct an elaborated analysis which
has answered the initially asked questions.

Each of Soueifs fictional books investigates the concepts and themes that characterize the
relationship between England and Egypt, marked by political and cultural differences, in a
(post)colonial context. Hybridity has left its mark on Ahdaf Soueifs personal life, therefore she is
able to navigate the common ground between Egypt and England and write about the problematic
issues that steer our contemporary world. Within this perspective, the analysis of stories, written by a
female author, that center around young women moving between East and West presents an
opportunity to investigate how representation of the Orient and its creatures developed and how
treatment of the voice of the subaltern woman shifted from segregation to admittance.

The most significant concepts discussed in this thesis analyze the exploration of the Mezzaterra,
and more specifically the implementation of hybridity on textual and content level and the attack of
Orientalist stereotypes in the West and gender oppression in the East. Homi K. Bhabhas theory on
the Third Space which displays a belief in the construction of an element which cannot be simply
brought back to its two original spaces can be illustrated by investigating Ahdaf Soueifs manner of
writing. As an author who inhabits the common ground between Egypt and England, she is able to
investigate and narrate stories that deal with problematic topics relating to the notions of East and
West from a distanced perspective. As her definition of the Mezzaterra describes, the hybrid space
in which different cultures meet is inspired by the best thoughts and actions of both roots. Influenced
by the culture of the West, Ahdaf Soueif is able to voice her thoughts on the challenging patriarchal
conventions maintained in Egypt, which shove the Arab woman in the role of subservient and silent
wife. This theme of women confronting patriarchal conventions was most apparent in In the Eye of
the Sun. Belief in hybridity and the Mezzaterra allows Soueif to distance herself from the
problematical notions of patriarchalism and narrate stories in which Arab women trapped by the
conventional stereotypes liberate themselves from unhappy marriages. As argued before, Ahdaf
Soueifs confidence in hybridity and the common ground gives her the opportunity to observe and
criticize the cultures of East and West from a biased perspective. She does so by leading In the Eye
of the Suns maincharacter through her struggle with sexual imperialist Gerald Stone. The theme is
also integrated in The Map of Love, where we have an English Victorian lady who challenges the
authenticity of Orientalist stereotypes.

Occupying the Mezzaterra also allows Ahdaf Soueif to maintain a clear perspective on the
implementation of Orientalist stereotypes which are circulating the Western world. In her novels,
Soueif attacks traditional ways of looking at the East as an exotic place characterized by erotic
escapades and hereby she echoes Edward Saids theory on Orientalism. Ahdaf Soueif follows
Saids footsteps by showing that the Orient is not an immoral place in urgent need of civilization,
rather she displays its rich culture.

In his theory, Bhabha contemplates about the merger of different cultures and sees the creation of a
Third Space as the creation of a new, hybrid identity which is built upon incongruity. By analyzing
Ahdaf Soueifs exploration of confrontational issues that people from the common ground meet, I
can argue that Soueif is a person who inhabits what Bhabha calls the Third Space. By attacking
patriarchal conventions in the Egyptian culture and by addressing the problematic act of the Wests
tendency to exoticize the East, she confronts elements from both cultures, without taking sides.
Occupying the Third Space allows her to look upon patriarchalism in Egypt, whilst being influenced
by the culture of the West. Simultaneously, Ahdaf Soueif is familiarized with the true nature of the
East and knows that many stereotypes that depict Egypt as an exotic place are false and do not
display the Orient in its authentic form.

In her essay, Spivak contemplates about minority groups who are never given a voice and,
therefore, are missing from documentary archives. She also writes about how these subaltern
people have to adapt to a Western model of thinking and writing in order to be heard. I argue that the
hybridity in Ahdaf Soueifs life has allowed her to shed some light on life as an Arab woman.
Because of her Egyptian roots, Soueif is able to give subaltern women a voice by telling stories of
these women. I believe that, because of her hybrid identity, Ahdaf Soueif is able to narrate these
stories. She writes them in a language that permits a direct link with the people of the West.

Soueifs inserts her confidence in hybridity in the narrative construction of her fictional novels in
multiple ways. By introducing historical events and characters within the world of the novel, a bridge
between the two separate levels of fiction and history is made, which results in the construction of a
new, hybrid text. Ahdaf Soueif attempts to transport this hybridity to the narrative structures of her
books have resulted in unsuccessful format hybridization in In the Eye of the Sun and successful
conjoining in The Map of Love. Inspired by the cultures of Egypt and England, the hybrid author has
also found a way to insert cultural references to Eastern and Western literature and music. Both
cultures are acknowledged and respected, as illustrated by the many intertextual references that are
integrated in both novels. The hybrid upbringing of Ahdaf Soueif has exposed her to a mixture of
different languages, a significant fact which is also explored in her books. Despite her decision to
write fiction in English, she cleverly introduces the richness of the English and the Arabic languages
by exploring the difficult act of translation as experienced by her characters. Allowing them to move
between these languages and letting them comment on the issue of translation exposes the reader
of Ahdaf Soueifs novels to passages that magically capture the essence of languages, without
losing grip on the syntactic constraints.
In the Eye of the Sun and The Map of Love send out ambiguous messages about the future of
hybrids. The merger of Egyptian and English cultural elements in Soueifs second novel, as
illustrated by the love story between Anna and Sharif, ends in tragedy, which might suggest that the
conditions for the Mezzaterra were not yet fulfilled round the beginning of the twentieth century,
since Egypt still suffered from British occupation. The second story of the novel is set at the closing
stages of that century but its end suggest that our contemporary world is not ready to embrace
hybridity, illustrated by the probable murder of Amals brother, Omar. One could find in Isabel, Amal
and baby Sharif, who is the son of Isabel and Omar, a new hybrid family, however, Ahdaf Soueif
remains vague about their future.

All of the examples described and analyzed above would not have been integrated in Soueifs
novels if she herself had not been influenced by the concept of hybridity. Occupying the
Mezzaterra, which combines the best concepts of these cultivations, makes it possible for Ahdaf
Soueif to create fictional stories based upon cultural elements marked by hybridity. This thesis has
illustrated how this concept of hybridity is integrated in the construction of her novels. My analysis
has shown that hybridization has a significant impact on the formal structure and content of In the
Eye of the Sun and The Map of Love. Hereby, I can conclude that Ahdaf Soueif is a female novelist
who writes about the merger of different cultures in a postcolonial context and therefore, she
navigates the Mezzaterra in her fictional writings.