كتابة الهويّة الأنثويّة في السيرة الذاتيّة والسيرة الغيريّة: تشكّلات الوعي الفرديّ والتاريخيّ عند إيمان مرسال

Abstract

This study examines two works by Iman Mersal—How to Mend: Motherhood and its Ghosts and In the Footsteps of Enayat al-Zayyat—from a comparative perspective, highlighting how Mersal deconstructs dominant narratives around motherhood and friendship through autobiographical and biographical writing. The research explores how Mersal portrays motherhood as a marginalized experience often concealed beneath an idealized discourse that promotes absolute harmony between mother and child. In contrast, her depiction of friendship in In the Footsteps of Enayat al-Zayyat becomes a space for forging a new literary lineage that transcends life and death, questioning the archive and mechanisms of erasure. The study aims to show how women’s life writing provides a space for resisting dominant narratives and reshaping awareness of social relationships traditionally assumed to be available to women. This thesis contributes to feminist literary studies by shedding light on the significance of life writing—both autobiographical and biographical—as a literary genre with the potential to reshape literary memory beyond institutional dominance.