Reclaiming body and nation: Heavier than Radwa as life/counter-narrative

Abstract

This paper aims to scrutinise Ashour’s narration of the body and Tahrir square as symbols of decay in Heavier than Radwa (2013); both corporeal decay of the body and national decay represented in Tahrir Square. For Ashour, narrating the body specifically acts as a counternarrative to the pre-existing embodied and emotional truths on the female body as well as her identity and citizenship. Ashour’s narration of illness joins the body and the mind in a multidimensional memoir that challenges the established scrutiny over the female body and its docile implications in the Arab world. It also extends its depiction of the body as an integrated category in the social structure despite its illness, exploring -in her case- how an Arab woman’s body unlocking a venue for a wider political critique.

Keywords

• Illness
• the body
• life-narrative
• Tahrir Square
• counter-narrative
• Egypt