Searching for New Scripts: Gender Roles in Memory of Departure

TLDR: In this paper, the authors focus on gender performativity in Abdulrazak Gurnah's debut novel Memory of Departure (1987), which is underpinned by Muslim codes of conduct, which demands that the production of meaning be unraveled from this starting point.

Abstract: This article focuses on gender performativity in Abdulrazak Gurnah's debut novel Memory of Departure (1987). Like all of Gurnah's oeuvre, this novel is underpinned by Muslim codes of conduct, which demands that the production of meaning be unraveled from this starting point. The ambiguity of social constructions of gender that sexualize relations of domination are highlighted in this novel, which renders Muslim men more visible as gendered subjects.