Huda Abdullah Al-Daghfaq (Arabic: هدى الدغفق; born 24 October 1967) is a Saudi Arabian poet, journalist, and feminist. She supports the removal of male guardianship from women and emphasises the importance of women as social and political decision-makers. Her memoir I Tear the Burqa to See has been described as an expression of the "existential battle" between her poetry and her cultural background.
Biography
Al-Daghfaq was born on 24 October 1967.[1] She earned a bachelor's degree in Arabic language from the University of Riyadh in 1989.[2] After graduation she taught in secondary schools, but during this period, because of her poetry she was accused of modernism – which in Saudi Arabia at that time came with accusations of atheism.[3] She published her collection, The Upward Shadow, in 1993.[4] Volumes of her poetry have been translated into several languages.[3] She has published two memoirs, the first when she was forty years old.[3] She experiments with form in her autobiographical writing.[5] Also a journalist, al-Daghfaq is one of several Saudi women poets who work in that field, with Hailah Abdullah Al-Khalaf citing her as an example alongside Khadeeja al-Amri, Fawziyya Abu Khalid and Ashjan al-Hindi [ar].[6]
Al-Daghfaq is a prominent Saudi feminist,[7] considering women to be leaders of the Gulf region's movement.[8] She supports the removal of guardianship from women and emphasises the importance of women as social and political decision-makers.[9] At the Jeddah Literary Club, Al-Daghfaq drew controversy as she crossed the division between areas of the meeting segregated by gender and recited her poetry to both men and women.[10]
Reception
Su'ad al-Mana said that Al-Daghfaq's writing is part of a tradition of Saudi women poets that began in the 1970s, citing her 1993 collection The Upward Shadow as a significant work in this period.[11] Her works have been compared to those of Iman al-Dabbagh, Ashjan al-Hindi, Sara al-Kathlan, Salwa Khamis, and Latifa Qari.[11] She is one of a number of Saudi prose poets.[12] Her work has been compared to that of Fawziyya Abu Khalid, Muhammed al-Dumaini and Ghassan al-Khunazi.[13] Her memoir I Tear the Burqa to See was described by academic Wasfy Yassin Abbas as an expression of the "existential battle" between her poetry and her cultural background.[14]
