title: Die Rezeption des Werkes von Nawal el-Saadawi im deutschsprachigen und englischsprachigen Raum
Creators: name: Brazier, Beth
Publisher: name: :none
Year: 2011

description: In der vorliegenden Arbeit beschäftige ich mich mit der Rezeption von Leben und literarischem sowie nichtliterarischem Werk der ägyptischen Schriftstellerin, Essayistin, Frauenrechtlerin und Ärztin Nawal el-Saadawi. Diese Arbeit soll einen Überblick über ihre Rezeption im deutsch- und englischsprachigen Raum bieten. Es soll gezeigt werden, welche Schwerpunkte die Rezensentinnen und Rezensenten in Hinblick auf Stil, Text, Intertextualität, poetologische Konzepte und Leitmotive in der Literatur von Nawal el-Saadawi setzten und wie ihre Bücher aufgenommen wurden. Die wissenschaftliche Rezeption im englischsprachigen Raum und die Interpretation der schöpferischen Arbeit el-Saadawis wäre ohne das Zutun der beteiligten Verlage Saqi Books und Zed Books in London nicht denkbar. Der Zeitpunkt des ersten Höhepunkt ihres Bekanntheitsgrades ist nach 1981 anzusiedeln, nach el-Saadawis Inhaftierung unter Präsident Anwar Sadat. Der Zweite Höhepunkt ihrer Rezeption erst wieder nach 1995, wo el-Saadawi, gemeinsam mit ihrem Mann, in die USA emigrierte, um dort eine Lehrtätigkeit an der Duke University in North Carolina, aufzunehmen. El-Saadawis erste Veröffentlichung war The Hidden Face of Eve 1982 bei Beacon Press in Boston. Die Reaktionen in der Fachpresse sind dieselben wie in Großbritannien, die Rezensionen erscheinen, wenn überhaupt, in international ausgerichteten Fachzeitschriften. Die wissenschaftliche Rezeption ihres Werkes zeichnet sich vor allem durch die Nähe am literarischen Text aus, was die Bedeutung von el-Saadawis Lebensgeschichte an den Rand rückt. Wissenschaftliche Arbeiten, die in englischer Sprache erschienen sind gibt es nach Diana Royer wenige, jedoch (verschiedene) Übersetzungen ihrer Romane. Die Stoffe, die el-Saadawi in ihren Werken behandelt, sind universell. Die Editionsgeschichte betreffend, lässt sich zusammenfassend sagen, dass die meisten Werke el-Saadawis recht bald ins Englische übersetzt wurden, während eine Übertragung ins Deutsche häufig auf sich warten ließ. Auch ist augenfällig, dass gewisse Kräfte versuchen, el-Saadawi als Aushängeschild für einen Kulturkampf zwischen dem „Westen“ und der arabischen Welt zu missbrauchen – etwas, das allem entgegensteht, was el-Saadawi in ihrem Werk und Leben seit Jahrzehnten vertritt. Die deutschsprachige Rezeption weist im Vergleich mit der englischsprachigen mehrere Unterschiede auf, zum Beispiel, was die Anzahl der Übersetzungen betrifft. Darüber hinaus gibt es Unterschiede, die Abfolge der Herausgabe der Bücher betreffend. Rezensionen in Zeitungen informieren häufig in erster Linie über die Person el-Saadawi und ihre Tätigkeit als Aktivistin für Frauenrechte. Die Literaturwissenschaft, im speziellen die Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft im deutschen Sprachraum, beschäftigt sich bislang noch nicht in einem Gender Studies- oder feministischen Kontext mit dem Werk der Ägypterin, im Gegensatz zu den USA, wo sich LiteraturwissenschaftlerInnen wie Fedwa Malti-Douglas oder Diana Royer bereits vor zehn Jahren mit el-Saadawi beschäftigten. Mit der Einbeziehung von feministischer Literaturwissenschaft und den Gender Studies wird el-Saadawis Werk anhand von Fachartikeln und Monographien ab diesen Zeitpunkt aus dem Kontext rein orientalistisch orientierter Studien herausgelöst und neu interpretiert. Am Schluss meiner Arbeit habe ich einen kurzen Vergleich mit Ingeborg Bachmann hinzugefügt da ich die ursprünglich angedachte Idee einen Vergleich der Rezeption Bachmanns und el-Saadawis nicht außer Augen lassen konnte.
description: In this work I have dealt with the life and literary and non-literary works of the Egyptian writer, essayist and advocate of women’s rights and doctor Nawal el-Saadawi. This work is meant to offer an overview of her reception in the German- and English-speaking worlds. I have given the focal points of the critics’ approach in respect of style, text, intertext reference, poetic concepts and leitmotiv in the literature of Nawal el-Saadawi and the way in which her books were received. The academic reception in the English-speaking world and the interpretation of el-Saadawi’s creative work would have been inconceivable without Saqi Books and Zed Books, the participating publishers in London. The period of the first highpoint of el-Saadawi’s fame was after 1981 following her arrest under President Anwar Sadat. The second highpoint of her reception was then only after 1995 when, together with her husband, el-Saadawi emigrated to the USA to assume a teaching post at Duke University in North Carolina. She subsequently taught at the University of Washington, the University of Illinois in Chicago and at Florida Atlantic University. Increased publishing endeavour and the academic dealings with her work and articles in the daily press that sequentially increased since the 1980s in Great Britain and the USA were definitely the points of departure of her acceptance in the trade press. El-Saadawi was first published in 1982 by the Beacon Press in Boston with the The Hidden Face of Eve, City Lights in San Francisco then published her Memoirs of a Woman Doctor one year after the work appeared in London. Reactions in the literary magazines were the same as those in Great Britain, acceptance, when at all, appeared in the international literary magazines in the spheres of gender research, comparative literature or journals dealing with Arabic literature, gender- and Oriental studies. The academic acceptance of her work is marked above all by the proximity of literary text, which sidelined the significance of the story of el-Saadawi’s life and, at least in the English language, permits a more exact depiction of style and leitmotivs. Readings of the novels in an academic gender- and feminist context were generally in the foreground, as were the linking with works to the theme of politics and related discourses at university and public spheres about globalisation. According to Diana Royer, few academic works have appeared in the English language, but there have been many and various translations of her novels. All three English-language monographs give a comprehensive reflection of el-Saadawi’s literature and the authors offer their critiques in an extremely differentiated way, which gives a further field for interpretation and appears far from being exhausted. Newson-Horst’s book, The Dramatic Literature of Nawal El Saadawi appeared in the spring of 2009. It was also simultaneously an exception in the debate of the works because she had not edited a monograph per se about el-Saadawi, but dealt comprehensively with the author’s dramatic literature and also published in the English language a translation by Rihab Kasstaly Bagnole of the stage play Isis. In their work, Fedwa Malti-Douglas and Diana Royer offer a strong recommendation for el-Saadawi’s experience in medicine as a creative influence in the themes of her novels, or the influences from her work as a feminist in the characters of her figures, which Tarabishi does not wish to acknowledge as fictitious because he considers the figures to be one-dimensional in conception and the novels as a portrayal of the real life of el-Saadawi. The material from el-Saadawi’s literature (and life) are as equally anchored in the USA as in Great Britain because her themes are not meant to be specifically Arabian in content and from el-Saadawi’s point of view are comparable to the themes of American and European writers and thus not in direct competition, which is a maxim that el-Saadawi intended to maintain in her work. When her writing was banned, she outlines and mentions the censorship of her work when the authorities in her country accused her of “anti-religious behaviour”, “dissemination of Communist ideas”, the “publicising of immoral directives that influence the sexual life of women”, which forced her to publish abroad and thus brought a further accusation. In this case she was accused of serving only a public in the West with her work. In respect of the history of her publications, one can say in summary that almost every one of el-Saadawi’s works was immediately translated from the Arabic into English and a translation into German, if ever, often took place many years later to appear on the German book market. It became clear that the author and her works (mostly the non-fictional) can be assessed as being current and for more than a decade representative of cultural- and political discourses between the “Middle West” and the “Middle East”. Mediation of the values, which has been the subject of discussion approached by the author in her non-fictional works and writing, and are also to be found in almost all of her novels, were already dealt with at the beginning of her career, which now encompasses several decades. Reception in the German language compared to the English shows several dissimilarities, in the number of translations, for example. Moreover, there are differences in the succession of the publication of the books. Critiques in newspapers often inform primarily of her person and her activity as an activist for women’s rights. Literary studies, especially comparative literature in the German-speaking world, have to date not dealt with the literary works of the Egyptian in a gender-related or feminist context. This is contrary to the USA, where such academics in the field of literature as Fedwa Malti-Douglas or Diana Royer have already dealt with gender studies and feminist literary studies a decade ago when writing about the author. Among other things, this deals with the inclusion of el-Saadawi’s works in a feminist history of literature and criticism, which found great response in the USA and, utterly in accord with comparative literature, was not limited to American writers. With the inclusion of academic feminist literature and gender studies, through academic articles and the monographs el-Saadawi’s works from this point in time have been removed from the context of Oriental studies and reinterpreted.