From award-winning author, Evelyne Accad, Wounding Words tells the story of Hayate, a young student in Tunisia, as she struggles to cope under the everyday injustices around her. After seeing too many of her cousins die under the blows of their husbands, Hayate promises herself to do everything she can to avoid the same fate. Her hope lies in a drastic move to Tunisia - hailed to be the most democratic and inclusive country in the Arab world. Yet what she finds when she arrives is a starkly different reality. Following Hayate's journals as a feminist scholar, Wounding Words offers a thought-provoking and intelligently written account of feminism as it exist across the world, asking how women everywhere can live day-to-day by its values.

Ayant publié de nombreux livres, poèmes, articles et critiques des années 70 à nos jours, Evelyne Accad est sans doute une des écrivains francophones la plus importante de nos jours. Son écriture est une vaste pérégrination. Aussi bien au Proche-0rient, en Afrique, en Europe, aux Etats-Unis, l'oeuvre d'Evelyne Accad est dévouée à la Femme : celle qui subit l'excision, l'abus, la guerre, la violence, l'injustice, et le cancer.

This is a rare multicultural perspective on disease, particularly cancer, in which the author takes on a journey through the medical establishments, cultural taboos, gender-tagged attitudes and personal stories of different civilisations. It could also be defined as a quest on how human logic relates to illness. The writing itself blends the diary, personal letters, poems and songs with excerpts from some of the foremost authorities in cancer research, producing an effect upon the reader akin to that which she experienced herself, as she moved back and forth between the emotional and physical shock of the cancer experience and the objective scientific data she uncovered. She begins to find cancer everywhere in her physical environment: friends, relatives and people she has never met -- some die. She finds a depth of friendship and support that she had never expected including that of her close companion. While writing her book she sent sections of it to friends, who commented on the text. These honest responses to her story add a further dimension. The structure and content of the book are informed by her deep commitment to women, men, ecology and peace issues. As part of the journey she reads many books on the environment and cancer. Although she lives in the USA and France, the book takes the reader on physical journeys to many other cities including Paris, Tunis and Beirut.

Worldwide Women Writers in Paris examines a new literary phenomenon consisting of an unprecedented number of women from around the world who have come to Paris and become authors of written works in French. It takes as its starting point a series of filmed interviews conducted in the French capital, a set of recorded conversations motivated by a desire to pay homage to these discrete voices and images at a moment characterized by impressive diversity. Their individual paths to France and to French are noteworthy, and these authors of different generations and varying places of origin emphasize their singularity. However, the juxtaposition of their reflections reveals that many have faced similar difficulties when learning the French language, adapting to life in France, and many have encountered forms of prejudice in the publishing world related to their ethnicity or gender. These challenges have led them, each in an idiosyncratic manner, to tackle tough topics in their work and to respond to adversity by finding effective creative expressions. Taken together, the innovations and interventions in oral and written form of these authors collectively contribute to significant change in the specialized score that is the Parisian literary landscape: Hélène Cixous (Algeria); Zahia Rahmani (Algeria); Leïla Sebbar (Algeria); Bessora (Belgium); Julia Kristeva (Bulgaria); Pia Petersen (Denmark); Maryse Condé (Guadeloupe); Eva Almassy (Hungary); Shumona Sinha (India); Chahdortt Djavann (Iran); Yumiko Seki (Japan); Evelyne Accad (Lebanon); Etel Adnan (Lebanon); Nathacha Appanah (Mauritius); Brina Svit (Slovenia); Eun-Ja Kang (South Korea); Anna Moï (Vietnam).

A nuanced understanding of literary imaginings of masculinity and femininity in the context of the 'national' canon of Egypt.

Poetical and powerful, Wounding Words is a vivid autobiographical exploration of women's issues in the political turmoil of contemporary Tunisia.