Characterization of Woman in Najib Kilani's Fiction

Najib Kilani is the first writer dealing with Muslim problems in his stories beyond the boundaries of the Arab world; in his avant-garde novels, such as Turkestan Nights, Jakarta's Virgin, and Giants of the North, which take place in Turkestan, Indonesia, and Nigeria respectively, he deals with these problems. In these novels, he has depicted the contemporary Muslim nation's struggle against colonialism; he has allocated a great share to Muslim women, who struggle shoulder to shoulder with men, persisting in their beliefs and religion. Their life is not limited to the house. They struggle can be verbal, armed or doctrinal. In each novel, there is a female main character, and the characters of all the three women are complex. For characterization, Kilani uses both direct and indirect methods. For main characters, he mostly uses narrator, dialogue, description of behaviour, and for secondary characters, he mainly uses indirect method, description of behaviour and face, as well as dialogue. Kilani establishes a special relation between characters and their names, so that the characters’ behaviour obviously witness to their names. He does not pay much attention to the description of women’s faces; rather he tries to depict their internal characteristics. The details he provides in this regard show his wealth of knowledge as regards the status of women in Islam