Language, Nationality and Gender: Identity Struggles in Three Novels by Inaam Kachachi

The present paper addresses identity struggles and exile in three novels by the Iraqi-French female writer Inaam Kachachi (b. 1952): Sawaqi al-qulub (2005), Al-Hafidah al-Amirkiyya (2008), and Tashari (2013). The main argument is that literature is not written in a void and that the characters’ inner conflicts – whether focused on gender, nationality, language, or the generation gap – reflect a broader conflict related not only to specific individuals but to a nation’s identity. The prism through which this issue will be explored is a literary-linguistic analysis, against the backdrop of the history of modern Iraq and the American invasion in 2003, that will shed light on this prominent novelist’s works and add to the body of knowledge on exile literature.¹