Unacknowledged pioneer: Gender, nation, and class in the short stories of samīrah 'Azzām

This paper charts the articulation of feminist, gender, and nationalist concerns in the writings of Samīrah 'Azzām (1927-1967). It situates 'Azzām's oeuvre within the Palestinian literary canon, arguing through a series of close readings of her short stories that, though overlooked, 'Azzām's writings are in fact seminal. Writing in the wake of the Nakbah, 'Azzām was among the first to articulate many of the tropes and motifs that would become central to Palestinian literary production. While her overriding concern was with class critique, 'Azzām's writing simultaneously prefigures later Palestinian feminist literary social critiques.