Contemporary Women's Writing Advance Access originally published online on June 15, 2009
Contemporary Women's Writing 2009 3(1):86-102; doi:10.1093/cww/vpp003
© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
An Interview with Leila Aboulela
Claire Chambers
Leeds Metropolitan University, UK c.chambers@leedsmet.ac.uk
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Leila Aboulela is an acclaimed Sudanese writer who currently resides in Abu Dhabi. Writing is her main career, and she also cares for her two young children. The daughter of a Sudanese man and an Egyptian woman, Aboulela was born in Cairo in 1964 but grew up in Khartoum.1 Egypt and Sudan were both colonized by Britain yet had very different experiences of colonial occupation, illustrated by the fact that Sudan was governed under joint British and Egyptian rule between 1899 and 1955.
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Leila Aboulela*
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As Aboulela's writing is shaped by these experiences, it is
useful to consider her work in its socio-historical context.
Edward Said famously opens the main body of
Orientalism (31–36)
with a depiction of Egypt's colonization under the leadership
of such
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Claire Chambers: What are you working on at the moment?
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CC: What's it like writing a historical novel? It's something quite different for you.
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CC: The term "British Muslim" is currently a contested term. How would you feel about being referred to as a British Muslim writer?
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CC: Would you prefer greater specificity in descriptions of you as a writer – say, for example, being portrayed as a "Scottish Arab writer"?
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CC: When you were talking before of enjoying being appreciated by Muslim readers, did you hear the description of you as a "halal novelist"?4 What did you think of that appellation?
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CC: In Minaret, Najwa is from a secular family, and she parties and wears short skirts, and is quite Westernized in many ways, and it's only later when she comes to Britain that she becomes religious. I wondered when I was reading the novel if there's anything of that in your own background, if you were brought up in a secular way?
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CC: I’m really interested in you saying that you felt free to wear the hijab, because now it's often interpreted as a sign of a lack of freedom, certainly that's how many Westerners perceive it. In contrast, for you, it seems like a symbol of liberty.
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CC: Yes, you get a sense of that in Minaret: when Najwa walks past building sites she feels that she gets looks, people are always examining her figure as well, and she's very conscious of her weight going up and down. Then she assumes the hijab and seems to be liberated from all that.
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CC: There are several words in the text that are quite ambivalent, but that provides a richness. At another point in the novel, Najwa describes the hijab as a "uniform" (186), which is another word that could be read in both a positive and negative light.
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CC: What did you think of the debate that emerged when a member of the UK parliament, Jack Straw, said that if a female constituent came to see him in his surgery wearing the niqab, or face-covering, he would ask her to remove it?
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CC: Or the right to ask it, really?
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CC: Do you think there's any Qur’anic justification for covering the face?
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CC: To go back to the British Muslim label, I was wondering whether you read any other British Muslim writers.
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CC: Turning to Coloured Lights: in that collection you have stories about abortion ("Make Your Own Way Home") and heavy drinking ("Majed"), and perhaps a somewhat stereotypical portrayal of the pitfalls of British life, although this is more nuanced in "The Museum." I wondered if you could say a bit more about that collection.
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CC: Could you speak to the issue of bereavement and depression, which recurs in your fiction, particularly in "Coloured Lights" and The Translator. Do you think depression manifests itself differently among migrant and indigenous communities? I guess I was struck by this trope in your writing since I was hospitalized with postnatal depression a year and a half ago.
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CC: Why did you choose to make the protagonist of your first novel, Sammar, work as a translator?
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CC: You employ two epigraphs in The Translator, from Abu Nuwas and Tayeb Salih. What was your thinking behind their use?
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CC: At one point in the novel, Yasmin calls Rae an Orientalist, which makes Sammar quite distressed. To what extent do you see the character as an Orientalist?
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CC: What about in Edward Said's sense of an Orientalist being someone who stereotypes the East and someone who's quite coercive in their knowledge practices?
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CC: There are quite a few references in The Translator to sharia or Islamic law, as when the mourning period for a widow is described as being kinder under the sharia than in secular society. Sharia is, of course, a concept much misunderstood in the West, so could you explain a bit more about your thinking on sharia?
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CC: Both your novels to date broadly fit into the genre of romance fiction, but there's a twist at the end of Minaret, at least. What were you trying to do with romance fiction as a form?
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CC: And, similarly, Rae falls ill at the end of The Translator, so like Mr. Rochester he's emasculated. Are there any other romance fiction influences on your writing?
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CC: Coming back to a comment you made earlier, when you were talking about Jane Eyre, you stated that the reader of The Translator isn't a Muslim but nonetheless he or she can relate to this Muslim dilemma. Do you see your readership as mostly Western, then?
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CC: You said that this reader belonged to a women's group as well – do you feel you’re writing for a female audience?
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CC: What's your attitude toward feminism?
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CC: When you talk about a Muslim feminist novel, are there any Muslim feminist theorists that have influenced your thinking, anyone that's articulated an idea of Islamic feminism?
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CC: In Minaret there's a lot of emphasis on different concepts of freedom in the Western and Muslim worlds. After her brother is imprisoned and her mother dies, Najwa comments "this empty space was called freedom" (175). Could you say a bit more about different concepts of freedom in the West and in the Islamic world?
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CC: Finally, Islamism is notably missing from Minaret. Tamer's beard and dress mean people look at him suspiciously, but he and Najwa aren't interested in politics. 9/11 is never mentioned, although Najwa is on the receiving end of Islamophobic behavior. In Regent's Park mosque, London's most prestigious Muslim place of worship, there's not really any extremism in your depiction. Is it your experience that extremism isn't terribly prevalent?
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CC: Leila Aboulela, thank you.
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