EUME
2010/ 2011

Maggie Awadalla

National Discourse and Egyptian Women’s Writing: Generational Differences in the Works of Latifa Zayyat and Ahdaf Soueif

studied English and Comparative Literature at the American University in Cairo and did her graduate work at the University of Kent, where she earned her PhD from the Centre of Colonial and Postcolonial Studies in 2006. Her dissertation, “National Discourse and Egyptian Women’s Writing: Generational Differences in the Works of Latifa Zayyat and Ahdaf Soueif” focuses on the participation of women writers in Egypt in creating a national discourse and their efforts at claiming a space within the public domain.
She has taught Arabic language and literature at Imperial College London and the School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London (SOAS). She also taught Modern and Postcolonial Literature at the University of Kent.

National Discourse and Egyptian Women’s Writing: Generational Differences in the Works of Latifa Zayyat and Ahdaf Soueif

As a EUME-fellow she will expand upon her dissertation project by tracing the effects of the socio-political and cultural change that lead to the development of compensatory discourses and radicalization in Egypt and the means by which an alternative secular and indigenous legacy can help find a common ground through literary forms of expression.