Abstract

This article traces the various representations of motherhood in the fictional work of the Catalan-Amazigh writer Najat El Hachmi. By using a contrapuntal reading that retrieves the silenced female voices implicitly embedded in the texts, the article underlines the importance of attending to linguistic and narrative polyphony both in narratives of mothering and in texts in which the mother plays a secondary role. This multilingual and feminist approach to Edward Said’s strategy of contrapuntal reading provides new tools to revisit Marianne Hirsch’s conception of the mother–daughter plot, demonstrating that the mother’s voice is not necessarily absent in narratives of daughters, but rather unheard.

This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://dbpia.nl.go.kr/pages/standard-publication-reuse-rights)
You do not currently have access to this article.