La scrittura come forma di emancipazione femminile: due racconti della saudita Šarīfah al-Šamlān

Despite some recent social reforms in Saudi Arabia, Saudi women’s rights are still limited in comparison to the rest of the Arab countries. Since the eighties of the last century, generations of female writers have committed themselves to women’s rights, in particular through the literary genre of the short story. Therefore, female writing has become a tool for advocating social renewal, challenging religious and political authorities and breaking the wall of social conventions and taboos. This article aims at analysing two short stories by Šarīfah al-Šamlān, who has devoted herself to denouncing the daily troubles of the Saudi woman, not just as a writer, but also in her position as a supervisor of the Women’s Department in the Commission on Human Rights in Dammam. Although her female characters seem anachronistic today, they have certainly contributed to the slow process of female emancipation in the most conservative Arab country.