Translating Nouzha Fassi Fihri's La Baroudeuse: A Case Study in ...

father, who wished she were a boy. When her father annuls her marriage to
Moulay Ali, Kenza rebels furiously but indirectly against her father's authority.
She runs away from home, threatens to kill herself, and never forgives him for
separating her from the man she loves, but nonetheless continues to fulfill her filial
duties and agrees to marry the second husband her father chooses for her. Kenza
frequently challenges norms of behavior expected of women. Though respectable
women were not expected to publicly acknowledge the sensual joys of married
life, Kenza openly showed her love for and physical attraction to her husband,
Moulay Ali. When Moulay Ali returns to Fez, Kenza insists that he stay in the
family home and ignores the women of the family who hint at the impropriety of
this arrangement. Though she marries Sharif out of the need to save face, she
dominates him and, "speaking the language of men" ("elle le brimait durement et
le menaçait de faire appel aux adels, parlant le langage des hommes" [37]), she
reverses their roles.
Sharif also emerges as a multifaceted and evolving individual, but in
keeping with the inverted gender roles, is depicted as the more "feminine" of the
pair, consistently subordinate to Kenza within the familial hierarchies of power.
The reader sees him first through Kenza's eyes: sleeping in an obscene position,
the features of his face sagging loosely and his legs spread to accommodate a
round belly rising in rhythm with his snoring ("Il dormait dans une position
obscène, les traits relâchés, flasques, les jambes écartées pour faire de la place à un
ventre rebondi, se soulevant au rythme de ses ronflements" [7]), an image that
highlights his passive vulnerability. From Kenza's father's perspective, Sharif is
"self-effacing, submissive, good, and dumb" ("quelqu'un d'effacé, quelqu'un de
5