Widad Sakakini
Widad Sakakini was a writer and critic from Syria.
Life
Sakakini was born 1913 in Sidon, Ottoman Syria to a Damascene father and a Lebanese mother. She studied under the theologian Mustapha Al-Ghalayini in Beirut. She wrote for the literary weekly al-Makshouf before marrying poet Zaki Mahasin in 1932 and moving to Mandatory Syria. There she wrote for her husband's newspaper, al-Muqtabas.She published her first book, Maraya al-nas in 1945, which may be the first published collection of short stories by an Arab woman. She achieved another first in 1949 with the publication of her first novel, Arwa bint al-khutub, described as the first true novel published by an Arab woman. The novel tells the story of a woman, Arwa, who is falsely accused of adultery by her husband's brother. She is convicted by a judge, stoned, and banished from Damascus. She suffers many persecutions before obtaining vengeance. Sakakini intended for the book to illuminate the "slander and abasement that women have endured" in Arab society.
In total, Sakakini published five collection of short stories, two novels, and numerous essays, article and criticisms.