Feminist Autobiographies

Women's writing is a distinct area of literary studies which is based on the notion that the experience of women is formed by their gender, and so women writers deserve close study. The scholarly interest in women's writing as a separate category grew comparatively in the seventies of the twentieth century. This, led to studying and writing women's autobiography. The rise of the status of autobiography was a result of being a genre that reflects different issues especially feminist, postcolonial and postmodern critical theories. The book investigates the feminist theoretical methodologies of life history writing. It is also an attempt to compare between Western autobiography and Arab life history through the analysis of Maya Angelou's six volume autobiography and Leila Abouzeid's memoir. The study hopes to help feminist academics, Arabic literature specialists and humanities scholars in general.