ZEITGEIST FIESTA

HAREM LITERATURES: CONSTRUCTION AND REPRESENTATION OF IDENTITY Life Writings and the Problem of Representation As Marlene Kadar says, “when writers want to be read, they have to be more flexible and take more chances than the standard scholarly writing allows: often they have to be more direct and more personal” (2). In a broadened sense, life writing is often considered as one of the most celebrated genre by feminist literary critics, mostly a subject of gynocriticism. It is a kind of writing about ‘the self’ or ‘the individual’, at times resembling a biography or autobiography, but also embracing letters, diary entries and even journals. What makes life writing distinguished from other literary forms is that it need not be written by ‘literary figures of the high culture’, but also be inscribed by ordinary men and women of the common folk. When written by ordinary people, it becomes a part of the ‘non-traditional literature’ and may include personal narratives, oral narratives ...