Darkest secrets of Yemeni women revealed by al-Kokabany

Dr. Nadiah al-Kokabany

Dr. Nadiah al-Kokabany is a well-known female writer in the Yemeni literature arena, in addition to her work as an assistant professorat Sana’a University in the Faculty of Engineering and the Department of Architecture.

Al-Kokabany has won numerous awards in the field of literature including the Su’ad al-Sabah Award and the President’s Award for Youth in 2001 in the field of short stories.

She has also participated in many conferences and scientific symposia in Yemen and abroad, and published research in the area of her specialization.

In the field of literature she has written for many Yemeni and Arabic newspapers and magazines, and released four short stories collections, namely Jasmine Exhale in 2001, Rolling in 2002, Scaling Off Darkness and Half Nose and One Lip in 2004.

She pleased her readers in 2006 with her first novel Not More Than Love which tells the story of ‘Farah’, a young Yemeni woman who has great ambitions to try to deal with a closed society like Yemen.

This novel led the writer and the academic critic Dr. Hatem al-Sakr to say at that time that Not More Than Love is a novel that contains an insightful perspective of women which is enhanced by discussion of the freedom of choice and constraints faced by women. Also, the novel penetrates deeply into the areas of self-defense, traditional norms, behaviors, and desires.

Now, al-Kokabany has released her second novel which, in 300 pages, reveals the darkest secrets of Yemeni women. The novel contains stories of 19 Yemeni women suffering silently behind closed doors.

The novel is titled, Aqeelat which literally means “First Ladies” or “Wives”. The purpose of this title, as al-Kokabany explains in the novel, is to combine the two Arabic meanings of this word. The first one is “the kind of wife who doesn’t leave her house and hides from men”, and the second is “the good woman who shuts her mouth”. By this creative title, al-Kokabany  explains the complicated and difficult situation of Yemeni women in just one word.

The great Yemeni poet, Dr. Abdul-Aziz al-Maqaleh doesn't hide his admiration of al-Kokabany's talent and her ability to bring about disengagement between what is scientific and what is moral. He said that the significance of the title is well known in a society that places no difference in the meaning of wife and prisoner, which clearly the readers feel more and more through access to the world of the novel.

He added that the there is big difference between al-Kokabany’s first novel and this one; not only in the style of writing and the functional vision, but also in the form of technical features that break the monotony of familiar stories in a creative exploration of new horizons based on breaking all the rules.

In two different events, one organized by Writers Unions and the other by the al-Afif Cultural Foundation, al-Kokabany provided testimony on her experience in writing, saying she decided to choose a career in a masculine community, insisting on matching the text and the life of the writer.

She also insists that now is the time for young writers to get their chance to be published and reviewed.

The writer, Mohammed Abdul-Wakil considers the novel a search on internal light, and the real hero in the novel is the conflict itself.

He pointed out the courage of the writer in addressing a number of taboo issues without using imagination, because the nature of the subject of the novel requires the writer to depend on facts. Therefore, he won't be surprised if the concerned people make a decision to prohibit it from entering into houses. He said, "It is a novel of hope ... a story of freedom, creativity and nostalgia."

On the other hand, the writer Zaid al-Faqeh made a quick comparison between the Saudi novel Girls of Riyad and the novel Aqeelat and found that although the two novels discuss the same issue, Aqeelat has the conditions of the real novel, unlike the Saudi novel which depends only on published, exchanged e-mails.

The General Secretary of the Writers Unions, Huda Ablan described al-Kokabany as the daughter of the mountain who is rolling her ideas in an area of tiredness and hope. She added al-Kokabany dropped a stone of creativity when she wrote about the world of women full of events, changes, psychological, ethical and social stations.

On Aqeelat’s cover, al-Kokabany sends a message to all Yemeni women by writing, “We are all the same; even if we are different in small ways... so I decided to write about us.”

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