Accad is the daughter of a Swiss mother (Suzanne Steudler) and a father of Lebanese and Egyptian descent (Fouad Accad). She was born in
Beirut in 1943 and grew up in Lebanon[2] and came to the United States in the early 1960s. She was educated at the Beirut College for Women, Anderson College,
Ball State University and
Indiana University Bloomington, receiving a
PhD in comparative literature from the latter institution. Accad taught at
Beirut University College in 1978 and 1984 and at
Northwestern University in 1991. She is Professor Emerita in Francophone, Arabophone, African, Middle East, Women's Studies and Comparative Literature at the
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and the
Lebanese American University in Beirut.[1]
She published her first novel L'Excisée in 1982; it was translated into English as The Excised in 1989.[3] This novel deals with
excision of women in both the physical and metaphorical sense.[4]
Although she has her own unique style, Accad was strongly influenced by the Egyptian-born French writer
Andrée Chedid and the Egyptian writer
Nawal El Saadawi.[2]
Selected works
Fiction
Coquelicot du massacre (1988)
Blessures des Mots: Journal de Tunisie (1993); English version Wounding Words: A Woman's Journal in Tunisia (1996)[5]
Non-fiction
Veil of shame: the role of women in the contemporary fiction of North Africa and the Arab world (1978)
ISBN978-2890400993; received the International Educator's Award; review[6]
Sexuality and War: Literary Masks of the Middle East (1990)
Des femmes, des hommes et la guerre: Fiction et Realite au Proche-Orient (1993); received the France-Lebanon Literary Award
Voyages en cancer (2000); received the Prix Phenix de Literature; English version The Wounded Breast: Intimate Journeys Through Cancer (2001)[5]
^
abToman, Cheryl (2007).
"Introduction". In Toman, Cheryl (ed.). On Evelyne Accad: Essays in Literature, Feminism, and Cultural Studies. Summa Publications. pp. 3–5.
ISBN978-1883479534.
^Yetiv, Isaac (1979). "Reviewed work: Veil of Shame: The Role of Women in the Contemporary Fiction of North Africa and the Arab World, Evelyne Accad". Research in African Literatures. 10 (3): 394–396.
JSTOR3818355.