Morocco's Suggested Reading List

• "Regarding reading list, even though she doesn't mention dance (except one small reference in Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood by Fatima Mernissi), if you want real, substantial information about the culture, sexual politics, etc. *anything* by Fatima Mernissi (just off the top of my head - I'm sure there are more I've read by her):
  1. Beyond the Veil: a Male-Female Dynamic In Modern Muslim Society (updated version)
  2. Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood; Excerpt
  3. The Forgotten Queens of Islam
  4. The Veil & the Male Elite (in the U.K. it's titled Women & Islam, in French: L'Harem Politique)
  5. Doing Daily Battle
  6. etc.

• "For those who may have been inadvertently "misled" by Orientalist fantasies (literature, paintings, films, son-of-the-sheik & Pepe le Moko fantasies, etc.....) run, do not walk & find yourself a copy of:
  • Veiled Half-Truths: Western Travellers' Perceptions of Middle Eastern Women by Judy Mabro

• "Wanna know what it's really like to be a dancer from Mohamed Ali Street in Cairo? Although a couple of her already-published Western book referenced sources are *very* flawed, her historical & in-person references are totally right on: (I'll be writing a detailed review shortly for "Habibi"...)
  • A Trade Like Any Other: Female Singers & Dancers in Egypt by Karin van Nieuwkerk

• "*anything* by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea:
  1. Middle Eastern Muslim Women Speak
  2. Guests of the Sheik
  3. A Street in Marrakesh
  4. View From the Nile
  5. The Arab World: Personal Encounters
  6. etc.

• Khul-Khaal: Five Egyptian Women Tell Their Stories by Nayra Atiya

• by Nawal el Saadawi:
  1. The Hidden Face of Eve
  2. Woman at Point Zero

• The first 2 books of Naguib Mahfouz' Nobel prize-winning trilogy:
  1. Palace Walk
  2. Palace of Desire
  His Middaq Alley & Wedding Song (Children of the Gebelawi, for which he was condemned to death by wacko pseudo-fundamentalists, is too much of an allegory/cliche to be of any direct import in learning about the real culture).

• Harem Years: the Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist by Hoda el Shaarawi. (First woman to publicly take off her veil in Egypt & founder of the Cairo Women's Club, for which I've danced on several occasions.) There's a *very* short, peripheral mention of a dancer performing at the *women's* party, the night of her wedding - when she was 12! - who literally ran away, with all the other women guests, at the very sound of the groom's approaching footsteps!!!)

So much more, but I gotta get something else done today. This Net stuff is addictive.....

Yours in mayhem, magic & merriment,
Morocco
104224.2526@CompuServe.com

Last Modified: 15 June 1997

Kimberly Cyr

kimberly@lpl.arizona.edu