Zaynab Fawwaz

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Zaynab Fawwaz
Zeinab Fawaz.jpg
Born1860
Tebnine, lebanon
Died1914
Beirut, lebanon
NationalityLebanon
Occupationnovelist, poet, playwright, activist, historian, writer, philosopher and journalist
Known forFirst women to write a play
Notable work
The Happy Ending (novel), Love and Faithfulness (play), history books and activism book

Zaynab Fawwāz (1860?–1914)[1] was a pioneering Lebanese Shiite, novelist, playwright, poet and historian of famous women.[2] Her novel Ḥusn al-'Awāqib aw Ghādah al-Zāhirah (The Happy Ending, 1899) is considered the first novel in Arabic written by a woman. Her play, al-Hawā wa-al-Wafā (Love and Faithfulness, 1893), is the first play written in Arabic by a woman.[3]

Early life[]

Little is known of Zaynab's early life and accounts are divergent.[4] In Joseph Zeidan's account:

Zaynab Fawwāz represents a unique phenomenon among the pioneering women writers. Zaynab was not from an elite, city family; rather, she was born to a poor, obscure, and illiterate Shiite family in the village of Tabnīn in southern Lebanon. Most sources agree that when she was young, Fawwaāz served as a maid at the palace of ʿAlī Bey al-Asʿad al-Ṣaghīr. Her work at the palace proved to be of great benefit to her; it gave her the chance to associate with Fāṭimah al-Khalīl, the prince's wife, who was a poet. Fāṭimah al-Khalīl recognized Zaynab Fawwāz's intellectual potential and began to tutor her.[5]

She was born between 1845 and 1860 into a Shiite family in Tabnīn, in southern Lebanon.[6][7] During her stay with al-Asʿad, Zaynab married one of the domestic workers. However, they would later divorce for reasons that remain unclear.[8]

Literary career[]

Zaynab later moved to Alexandria, Egypt, where she became the student of the poet and owner of Magazine, Hasan Husni Pasha Al-Tuwayrani. Under his guidance, she began to write articles on social issues affecting women, under the pseudonym of Durrat al-Sharq (Pearl of the East).[9][10][11]

According to the Critical Reference Guide of Arab Women Writers, Fawwaz was "the first woman's voice calling for the women's awakening and defending their rights, humanity, and equality with men."[9] It was during her stay in Damascus with her second husband, the writer , that Zaynab Fawwaz founded a literary salon. As she wore the niqab and could not sit with the male participants; she would sit in another room of the house conducting the discussion, with her husband acting as the messenger for her and her guests.[12]

Besides her journalism, Zaynab is particularly noted for her Kitāb al-Durr al-Manthūr fī Ṭabaqāt Rabbāt al-Khuduūr (The Book of Scattered Pearls Regarding Categories of Women, 1894–95), a large-folio, 552-page biographical dictionary of some 456 women and their achievements.[13]

Zaynab also wrote two novels and a play, putting her at the forefront of the emergence of the novel in Arabic. Her first novel was Ḥusn al-'Awāqib aw Ghādah al-Zāhirah (The Happy Ending, 1899). Her play, al-Hawā wa-al-Wafā (Love and Faithfulness, 1893), was the first play written in Arabic by a woman.[3]

References[]

  1. ^ Zaynab's year of birth is given by different authorities variously at 1846, 1850, 1859, and 1860, but according to Joseph T. Zeidan, Arab Women Novelists: the Formative Years and Beyond (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), p. 289 fn. 54, 1860 is the general consensus.
  2. ^ Ashour, Radwa (2008). Arab Women Writers: A Critical Reference Guide, 1873–1999. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press. ISBN 978-977-416-146-9. p. 391.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b Joseph T. Zeidan, Arab Women Novelists: the Formative Years and Beyond (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), pp. 66–67.
  4. ^ Joseph T. Zeidan, Arab Women Novelists: the Formative Years and Beyond (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), p. 289.
  5. ^ Joseph T. Zeidan, Arab Women Novelists: the Formative Years and Beyond (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), p. 64; cf. Ashour, Radwa (2008). Arab Women Writers: A Critical Reference Guide, 1873–1999. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press. ISBN 978-977-416-146-9, p. 14.
  6. ^ Julie Scott Meisami; Paul Starkey (1998). Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature. Taylor & Francis. p. 226. ISBN 978-0-415-18571-4. Fawwaz , Zaynab ( c.1850-1914 ) Lebanese poet , essayist and novelist. Born between 1845 and 1860 to a family of modest means in the village of , Jabal ' Āmil , in the southern Lebanon
  7. ^ Lattouf, Mirna (2004). Women, Education, And Socialization In Modern Lebanon: 19th And 20th Centuries Social History. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America. ISBN 0-7618-3017-0, p. 73.
  8. ^ Ashour, Radwa (2008). Arab Women Writers: A Critical Reference Guide, 1873–1999. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press. ISBN 978-977-416-146-9, p. 391; Zeidan, 1995, p. 84; Scott Meisami, Julia & Starkey, Paul (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature (Vol. 1) Routledge, 2003 p. 226.
  9. ^ Jump up to: a b Ashour et al., 2008, 392
  10. ^ Zeidan, 1995, p. 83
  11. ^ Bahbuh, Zaynab Nubuwah (2000). زينب فواز : رائدة من أعلام النهضة العربية الحديثة، ٦٤٨١-٤١٩١. Damascus: Ministry of Culture of the Syrian Arab Republic. p. 10. OCLC 45641746.
  12. ^ Zeidan, 1995, p. 82
  13. ^ Published by ʼal-Maṭbaʻah ʼal-Kubrá ʼal-ʼAmīrīyah, Būlāq, Egypt, 1312 [1894]: http://search.lib.cam.ac.uk/?itemid=%7Ccambrdgedb%7C1833217. Mervat Fayez Hatem, Literature, gender, and nation-building in nineteenth-century Egypt: the life and works of ʻAʼisha Taymur, Literatures and cultures of the Islamic world (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), p. 2; Joseph T. Zeidan, Arab Women Novelists: the Formative Years and Beyond (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), p. 66. The work is the subject of the following monograph study: Marilyn Booth, Classes of Ladies of Cloistered Spaces: Writing Feminist History through Biography in Fin-de-Siècle Egypt (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015).
Retrieved from ""