Al-Tahawy describes their clothing, living arrangements, and customs. The novella ~ 150 pages ~ is an intimate look at the lives of the Bedouin women of the Sinai. As she enters puberty, some of her relatives begin to distrust her and blame her for misfortunes occurring in their life because of this sight. Fatima has a second sight, regularly talking to animal spirits and djinns, seeing visions in the stars, etc. Her father, a wealthy trader and shepherd, visits regularly and showers her with attention and gifts. The eponymous "tent" refers to the women's quarters where she lives with her female relatives and servants. The Tent tells the story of Fatima, a Bedouin girl in the Sinai desert of Egypt, as she moves from childhood to adolescence, from naïvete into knowing. from the Arabic (Egypt) by Anthony Calderbank, 1996 /1998 English translation, American University in Cairo Press.
Three novels followed: Al-Khibaa (The Tent, 1996), Al-Badhingana al-zarqa (The Blue Aubergine) and Naquarat al-Zibae (The Gazelle's Tracks), the first two of which have been translated into English by the American University in Cairo Press.įrom THE TENT by Miral al-Tahawy, tr. In 1995, she published a collection of short stories Riem al-barai al-mostahila (The Exceptional Steppe Antelope) based on childhood memories and her grandmother’s stories.
Her experience of coming to the city for the first time and gaining her freedom inspired her to write. She managed to avoid marriage by working as a teacher, and then by leaving without permission to study at the University of Cairo.īorn in 1968 into the Bedouin al-Hanadi tribe, she credits her liberal-minded father with the fact that both she and her older sister (who is a pharmacist) obtained an education, although they lived in traditional seclusion. Until she left for Cairo at the age of 26, al-Tahawy had never left her village (Geziret Saoud in the eastern Nile delta) without a male relative or guardian. Miral al-Tahawy (Arabic: ميرال الطحاوي) is an Egyptian writer of short stories and novels.
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