Male and Female Biculturalism: A Study of Edward Said’s Reflections on Exile: And Other Literary and Cultural Essays (2000) and Ahdaf Soueif’s Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground (2004).

Abstract

Both Edward Said’s Reflections on Exile (2000) and Ahdaf Soueif’s Mezzaterra (2004) are two collections of cultural, journalistic, political and literary essays. Said’s and Soueif’s books mainly and subtly tackle the concept of middle-ness, whether middle-ness between two ideologies, languages (English/ Arabic), including the language of media, lands and even epochs; for what resides between two terrains inevitably becomes the threshold leading from one to the other and vice versa. What draws attention to their investigation of two-ness is the method they pencil such duality; theirs is the duality of intersection and integrity rather than the duality of opposition and repulsion. Said and Soueif employ such contradictions to accentuate the vitality of encounter and diversity. Therefore, the title of Said’s book is an invitation to contemplate the meaning of exile in order to unearth its blessings. For it is more profitable to become exiled and obtuse-angled rather than at home and acute-angled. Likewise, the title of Soueif’s book denotes the multi-layered significance of the Mezzaterra – the middle common ground – that is an un-geographical land, of remarkable culture, whose residents are refugees of exile and displacement. The literary intonations permeating the book reflect that a Mezzaterra, by definition, is a multicultural spatial-temporal safe zone for different segments of life to meet, merge and maintain the sense of community. In view of that, Soueif intricately knits a deduction that a common ground is directly proportional to a multicultural community; a relation that further highlights the fact that a common ground is necessarily situated in the middle. Thus, Mezzaterra is a spatial-temporal spot of diversity that enriches those who are aware enough to realize that the inner voice of one’s root is often stronger. No wonder then that Soueif describes Egypt as a Mezzaterra and not Britain. Conversely, Said maintains a disparate viewpoint of root/exile from Soueif’s. For the inner voice of the root within should not necessarily be the strongest or the most important. Likewise, neither the root nor rootedness guarantees steadiness; rather, the traveller’s unrootedness – especially that of the intellectual – is what puts all inner voices and roots on an equal harmonious footing, despite their discrepancies. This enables the traveller/exile to transcend the limitedness of place. Hence, Said’s rejoicing in being out of place, or; rather above and beyond the place. Duality is the nucleus of exile and the common ground; it is the inevitable foundation of cultural diversity. If duality perishes, mezzaterra dies, unilateralism prevails, humans become deprived of the blessings of exile, and bridges of communication perish.