As another March has come around, not only has that brought longer, lighter days, but also International Women’s Day and the opportunity to celebrate the lives and work of brilliant women around the world! Here at the NGL is a wonderful place to do so with collections covering many, many geographical regions including but not limited to South Korea, the Philippines, India, Egypt, Algeria, Turkey, Palestine, Senegal, and Kazakhstan. In both this blog and the display that goes with it, there are books on women’s experiences covering genres and subjects from activism, religious history, novels, drama, and poetry. 

I was particularly inspired by the variety of books on women’s activism, such as Wrapping Authority: Women Islamic Leaders in a Sufi Movement in Dakar, Senegal, and The History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for Women’s Rights and Feminism in India, 1800-1990.  

One such book – Uyghur Women Activists in the Diaspora: Restorying a Genocide which tells the stories of ten Uyghur women’s experiences and advocacy – particularly stood out to me as an example of how women’s stories in the NGL collections often show the intersection between feminism and anticolonial critique. Other examples include the poetry of Suheir Hammad, who challenges orientalist stereotypes through her work, and the book Writing Women in Korea: Translation and Feminism in the Colonial Period which highlights how Korean women writers used translation to exercise agency while under Japanese rule.  

I also especially want to highlight the Turkish novelist Elif Shafak, who was elected President of the Royal Society of Literature at the end of last year. She is represented in the display by several books including her debut title, Pinhan, and Three Daughters of Eve – a story which I highly recommend and which oscillates in setting between Istanbul and Oxford.  

I really hope you are also inspired by the voices of the women featured in this display and that you continue to explore the women’s narratives that can be found throughout the NGL and the Bodleian Libraries’ collections – because this display is far from the full story!  

Bibliography 

M. Abisaab and M. Hartman, What the War Left Behind: Women’s Stories of Resistance and Struggle in Lebanon, trans. C. Nasrallah, Syracuse NY, Syracuse University Press, 2024. 

M. Bano and H. Kalmbach, Women, Leadership and Mosques: Changes in Contemporary Islamic Authority, Leiden, Brill, 2012. 

B. Baron, The Women’s Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society, and the Press, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2009. 

Z. Batayeva and S. Fairweather-Vega (eds.), Amanat: Women’s Writing from Kazakhstan, New York, Gaudy Boy LLC, 2022. 

K. Bhasin and R. Menon, Borders & Boundaries: Women in India’s Partition, New Brunswick NJ, Rutgers University Press, 1998. 

N. Bhatia, Performing Women/Performing Womanhood: Theatre, Politics, and Dissent in North India, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2010. 

P. Chang, Women’s Experiences and Feminist Practices in South Korea, Seoul, Ewha Womans University Press, 2005. 

M. Díez and J. Mathews (eds.), Daughters of the Bear: An Anthology of Korean Women’s Stories, Dallas, University Press of America, 2004. 

S. Furayḥ, Creativity & Exuberance in Arab Women’s Poetry: (From the Sixth to the Twentieth Centuries), Kuwait, Ministry of Information Government Printing Press, 2005. 

J. S. Ḥaddād, I Killed Scheherazade: Confessions of an Angry Arab Woman, London, Saqi, 2010. 

S. Hammad, Born Palestinian, Born Black, Brooklyn NY, UpSet Press, 2010. 

N. Handal (ed.), The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology, New York, Interlink Books, 2001. 

S. Haqqani, Feminism, Tradition and Change in Contemporary Islam: Negotiating Islamic Law and Gender, London, Oneworld Academic, 2024. 

F. Hasan, Voices in Verses: Women’s Poetry and Cultural Memory in Nineteenth Century India, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2024. 

J. Hill, Wrapping Authority: Women Islamic Leaders in a Sufi Movement in Dakar, Senegal, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2018. 

K. Hossein, A History of Islam in 21 Women, London, Oneworld, 2020. 

U. Hüsken, Laughter, Creativity, and Perseverance: Female Agency in Buddhism and Hinduism, New York, Oxford Unversity Press, 2022. 

T. Hyun, Writing Women in Korea: Translation and Feminism in the Colonial Period, Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 2003. 

R. Khanna, Algeria cuts: Women and Representation, 1830 to the Present, Stanford CA, Stnford University Press, 2008. 

Y. Kim (ed.), Gendered Landscapes: Short Fiction by Modern and Contemporary Korean Women Novelists, trans. Y. Kim, Ithaca NY, East Asia Program Cornell University, 2017. 

R. Kumar, The History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for Women’s Rights and Feminism in India, 1800-1990, London, Verso, 1997. 

D. Mahmut, S. J. Palmer, and A. Udun, Uyghur Women Activists in the Diaspora: Restorying a Genocide, London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2024. 

L. S. Majaj, T. Saliba and P. W. Sunderman (eds.), Syracuse, Syracuse University Press, 2002. 

R. Roded, Women in Islamic Biographical Collections: From Ibn Sa’d to Who’s Who, Piscataway NJ, Gorgias Press LLC, 2018. 

B. Shaaban, Voices Revealed: Arab Women Novelists, 1898-2000, Boulder CO, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2009. 

E. Shafak, Pinhan, Istanbul, 1997. 

E. Shafak, Bit Palas, İstanbul, Metis Yayınları, 2004. 

E. Shafak, Three Daughters of Eve, London, Viking, 2016. 

E. Shafak, On Dakika Otuz Sekiz Saniye, Istanbul, Doğan Kitap, 2019. 

C. I. Sobritchea, Gender, Culture & Society: Selected Readings in Women’s Studies in the Philippines, Seoul, Ewha Womans University Press, 2004. 

St. Anne’s College University of Oxford, Congratulations to St Anne’s Honorary Fellow, Elif Shafak, on her election as President of the Royal Society of Literature, https://www.st-annes.ox.ac.uk/congratulations-to-st-annes-honorary-fellow-elif-shafak-on-her-election-as-president-of-the-royal-society-of-literature/ (Accessed 12/03/26). 

P. Yi, Women in Korean History, Seoul, Ewha Womans University Press, 2008.