In their front yard: deconstructing masculinities in Bahaa Trabelsi's novels

Abstract

This paper reads Bahaa Trabelsi's three novels Une Femme Tout Simplement (Trabelsi, Bahaa. 1995. Une Femme Tout Simplement. Casablanca: Eddif.), Une Vie à Trois (Trabelsi, Bahaa. 2000. Une Vie à Trois. Casablanca: Eddif.) and Slim, les Femmes et la Mort (Trabelsi, Bahaa. 2004. Slim, les Femmes et la Mort ... . Casablanca: Eddif.) and her collection of short stories Parlez-moi d'Amour (Trabelsi, Bahaa. 2014. Parlez-Moi d'Amour. Casablanca: La Croisée des Chemins.) as examples of a renewed feminine consciousness that subverts the patterns of Moroccan masculinity. Trabelsi positions herself as a unique writer whose interest in and critique of the male discourse puts her at odds with other contemporary female writers. Her novels explore complex identities, deconstructing the myth of masculinity where male characters are fragile victims of an oppressing social order that predetermines what it means to be a man. Her female characters, on the other hand, emerge as autonomous and powerful...