Centering the black slave in Bahāʾ Ṭāhir’s Wāḥat al-ghurūb

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper constructs the story of Niʿma, a Sudanese or Nubian slave in Bahāʾ Ṭāhir’s Wāḥat al-ghurūb (2006; Sunset Oasis 2009). Set in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Egypt, the novel revisits the 1881–1882 Urābī Revolution and the subsequent British invasion. Through the male protagonist, Maḥmūd ʿAbd al-Ẓāhir and his relationship with Niʿma, his concubine, Wāḥat al-ghurūb re-evaluates Egypt’s nationalist rhetoric. Made to represent an essence of Egypt, Niʿma is denied her history and memory except as an exotic, jasmine-scented Scheherazade whose folktales captivate Maḥmūd, and whose sexuality satiates him. I argue that despite the absence of her voice Niʿma shows agency mainly through casting herself as an active storyteller and additionally through her decisions to stay with her masters after their bankruptcy, and later to leave the house when she realizes that Maḥmūd sees her as a commodity.