Body, difference, and identity in two novels by Salwā al-Na‘īmī

This article explores the role of the body in the novels Burhān al-ʻasal (The Proof of the Honey, 2007) and Šibh al-ǧazīra al-ʻarabiyya (The Arabian Peninsula, 2012) by Syrian writer Salwā al-Naʻīmī. In both novels, the female body is the site of the renewal of the process of identity formation and recognition for the protagonists. Accordingly, this study explores how the “performed and performative body” can call into question normative methods of defining identity.