Sex and the Muslim Woman

The Almond, published by Grove Press, is an anonymously written story of one Muslim woman's journey through sexuality. Originally published in France by Editions Plon, The Almond has secured a growing number of readers intrigued by the explicit sex scenes in the book and the fiercely-guarded anonymity of the author--she only goes by the pen-name Nedjma. ". . . she explained in a recent conversation here to coincide with Grove Press's publication of the novel in the United States this month, by portraying a woman enjoying the pleasures of the flesh, she wanted both to celebrate the body as an expression of life and to strike a blow against the centuries-old repression of Muslim women. In fact, she said, what first set her writing was her anger at the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and Washington's reaction to them. "Two fundamentalisms collided," she said. "The fundamentalists committed an irreversible, shocking, outrageous act. But the reply was also monstrous, shocking, outrageous. I saw the two sides speaking only of murder and blood. No one cared about the human body." The release of The Almond coincides with a publishing surge in books about and by women authors of Arab and Middle Eastern descent. The recent release of Marjane Satrapi’s Embroideries, a graphic novel that captures a community of women engaged in discussions of sex, sexuality, religion, and politics is perhaps the most similar of the books given its thematic concerns. But there’s also Brick Lane by Monica Ali, Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi, and Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake just to name a few. In any case, I wonder what is propelling the wave (or trend, depending on how you talk about these things) in female, Arab and Middle Eastern writing: is it another version of orientalism in which all of our fears about female repression and the "horrors of the Muslim world" can be validated or have these authors created a new space wherein the voices of the silenced are becoming louder and the realities—both repressive and liberatory—of their lives are being articulated by the women themselves? I’d argue it’s the latter and that it’s high time. Keep writing and get reading!