Women talking sex, now

There is no shortage of female novelists tackling sexual themes in the Arabic—so much so that it is a lively subject of both academic and popular study. For more on this topic, see “Literature and the Seeds of Dissent” in Resistance in Contemporary Middle Eastern Cultures: Literature, Cinema and Music by Karima Laachir and Saeed Reza Talajooy, La Sexualité et la Société Arabe à travers l’Oeuvre de Ghada Samman by Wafiq Gharizi “Arab Women Writing their Sexuality” in Hawwa by Rita Stephan and “Rewriting Women’s Sexuality between Demonization and Empowerment” by Mona Ibrahim Ali. For a more general treatment of sexuality in Arabic literature, see Love and Sexuality in Arabic Literature by Roger Allen and Ed de Moor Sexuality and War: Literary Masks of the Middle East by Evelyne Accad. Among my favourites:

Proof of the Honey by Salwa Al Neimi

Always Coca-Cola by Alexandra Chreitah

I am You by Elham Mansour

Women of Sand and Myrrh, Hanan Al-Shaykh

Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi