Sa‘īda Bint Ḫāṭir al-Fārisī–the water of ice and fire

Abstract

The beginnings of Omani women’s literary work go back to the previous century, when the Sultan of Oman and Zanzibar’s daughter Sayyida Sālma Bint Sa‘īd started to write her memoirs, which were published in Berlin in 1886 under the title Muḏakkirāt Amīra ‘Arabiyya (Memoirs of an Arabian Princess). In her book she described her life story; youth, marriage to a foreigner, departure from the country and the great longing accompanying her. She also pictured the discrepancy between the societies of the East, where she was born and spend her childhood, and the West, where she was to spend the rest of her life. The beginnings of modern literary activity amongst women in Oman can be placed in the 1980s. That is, within the period of the great development of literary culture. The nineties are a time of eruption in literary activity both in the field of poetry and prose.