Abstract

Evelyn Shakir s Bint Arab 1997 2 which follows the journeys and un homed experiences of three generations of Arab-American women and their search for self identity and voice puts a human face to borrow Taynyss Ludescher s words 3 on Arab-American fiction and presents multiple perspectival narratives and subject positions which depict the stories utterances fractures slippages and exilic consciousness of Arab- American women and their attempts to negotiate an inbetween space for themselves in which a potentially vast number of relations coalesce Shakir s narrative not only seems to echo Bakhtin s heteroglossia as it permits a multiplicity of social voices 4 but it also seems to resonate with recent scholarship on the ethics of literature particularly with Martha Nussbaum s claim that narratives formally construct empathy and compassion in ways highly relevant to citizenship 5