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Inside Saudi Arabia’s First Feminist Literary Magazine
‘I want to counter Western stereotypes about Middle Eastern women, while highlighting issues for Saudis that aren’t spoken about in Saudi society.’
Ahd Niazy tells me she is having a tough week; it’s her final semester at Emory University, where she is a double major in Creative Writing and Interdisciplinary Studies in Culture and Society, and the senior crunch is well underway. As we speak via FaceTime, she is sitting in a computer room on campus and in the background I occasionally see flustered students walk by.
Ahd is the creator and editor-in-chief of Jahanamiya, Saudi Arabia’s first feminist literary magazine. In just three issues, the magazine has pushed the boundaries of the Saudi literary establishment with startlingly intimate pieces of fiction, essay, and poetry.
Jahanamiya denotes the bougainvillea plant in Arabic — a carefully chosen word. The bougainvillea grows easily in Saudi Arabia, can look after itself (it hardly needs any tending), and is very hardy and colorful — so it adds something beautiful and vibrant to the world, Ahd explains to me. It’s a metaphor for the voices of Saudi women, she adds.