Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
MAN IN INDIA, cilt.97, ss.391-403, 2017 (Scopus)
Although the term magical realism first appeared in 1925 in relation to pictorial art in Germany, it became widely recognized during the boom of magical realist fiction in Latin America in the 1960s. Since the 1980s, it has developed into one of the most popular modes of writing worldwide. Due to its oxymoronic and hybrid nature—combining magic and realism—it has attracted considerable critical attention.
The present study examines Fatma; or, A Novel of Arabia by Raja Alem (1963–), a Saudi Arabian writer. Alem is one of the most prominent female authors in the Arab world and has received several awards both in the Arab world and in Europe, including the Arabic Booker Prize for her novels. She published Fatma in 2002 in English in the United States, and the novel remains one of her banned works in Saudi Arabia. The narrative depicts the gradual metamorphosis of Fatma, who is trapped in the patriarchy of her snake-venom-dealer husband, into a woman-snake.
Although Alem, like other writers of magical realism, does not explicitly label her work as such, this study seeks to highlight the techniques of magical realist fiction in the novel. These include the presence of the irreducible element, the phenomenal world, unsettling doubts, the merging of realms, and disruptions of time, space, and identity.
Keywords: Fatma, Magical Realism, Oxymoron, Raja Alem