The female suffering body: illness and disability in modern Arabic literature: Bookreview.

Review of the book: The female suffering body: illness and disability in modern Arabic literature / by Abir Hamdar, Syracuse, NY, Syracuse University Press, 2014, 166 pp. - ISBN 978-0-81-563365-5

Hamdar’s The Female Suffering Body takes the reader on a comprehensive journey through the role and representation of the ill and disabled female body in Arabic literature from the 1950s to the 2000s, beginning with a comparison of male and female writers between 1950 and 2000, and then considering works written by women since 2000. This broadly genealogical approach helps a reader unfamiliar with the culture and politics of Middle Eastern and Arabic countries to follow wider social and cultural events, while Hamdar offers a thorough and insightful analysis of the literature.

Overall, The Female Suffering Body is an interesting text that presents a comprehensive genealogy of representations of ill and disabled women in modern Arabic literature. This book will be of interest to those exploring non-western concepts of disability, health and illness, and also to those engaging with literary representations of disability and illness.