After studying mathematics at university, Samia Alatout worked as a deputy bank manager. She wrote for various Arab newspapers such as Taiki magazine, which specialises in women’s literature. After a first collection of texts published in 1986, “Tuqūs unthá” ([Rituals of A Woman], 1990), “Tarbūsh Mūzārt” ([Tarbush Mozart], 1998), “Sirwāl al-fitnah” ([The Trousers of Temptation], 2002), “Qāriʻ al-ajrās” ([The Bell Ringer], 2008) followed. The heroines in her novels are often women whose lives are defeated in the face of patriarchal society. The author shows a closed male society, suffocating the female self who is thirsty for freedom and working to acquire it. “Tarbūsh Mūzārt” features female characters haunted by fear, loss and change of scenery, but who, however, retain a positive vision of the other. The novelist’s universe oscillates between spaces of love and hatred, freedom and slavery, truth and lies that taint relationships between men and women, all imbued with graceful touches through a concise and dense style. She is one of the most important feminist voices in Jordan’s literary history.
