• Nasaybah Awajan

  Author

• Dr. Mahmoud Al-Shetawi

  Author

• Yousef Awad

  Author

Western characters are quite prominent in the works of Arab novelists in diaspora
since the events of these novels are mainly set in European and American urban spaces.
European and American characters have been rendered differently from one period to another
and from one Arab writer to another. In this context, one may suggest that the portrayal of
Westerners by Arab British women writers may be described as ambivalent as some writers
represent them favorably while others depict them in unfavorable ways. Moreover, one can find
both favorable and unfavorable representations of Western characters in the same literary work.
This study investigates how Westerners are portrayed in the works of two Arab British women
writers. Specifically, this paper investigates how Ahdaf Soueif’s The Map of Love and Fadia
Faqir’s My Name is Salma ambivalently depict Western characters. In her representation of
Westerners, Soueif aims at producing a Western voice which speaks for the colonized against the
colonizer while Faqir aims at highlighting her protagonist’s mental and psychological dilemma
as a vulnerable refugee through her interactions with various Western characters. Overall,
negative representations of some Westerners are certainly counterpoised by positive depictions
of some others. Both Soueif and Faqir carefully portray their Western characters in a way that
reflects the two novelists’ astute artistic and creative powers.

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