18th C Women's Captivity Narratives: A Postcolonial Feminist Reading

This book is a study of selected eighteenth-century women's captivity narratives, both of facts and of fiction, from a postcolonial feminist perspective. I, the author, limited myself mainly to British women's captivity narratives, which were published in that century. To enrich the scope of my work, I have included one unique woman's captivity account of a Moroccan woman captive. My choice of the eighteenth century lies in its historical importance in terms of events that happened both in Europe and in North Africa. In my work, I aim at arguing that women captivity writers have enriched women's literary heritage. In fact, these women captivity writers have contributed to give shape to women's writings and have contributed to the rise of women's novel writing. These women captivity writers had been conscious of their secondary social position. So, these women's escape from their captivity a more a viable form of escaping the patriarchal social norms creating a specifically their mode of writing.