Motherhood and Memory in Najwa Bin Shatwan’s The Slave Yards

This study argues that female slaves’ experiences of motherhood are negatively impacted by the control exerted by social and discursive patriarchy. Focusing on the mother‒daughter relationship as a vessel of memory transmission, this paper addresses how this control complicates maternal memory narration. Utilizing a contextual approach, this study investigates the influence of patriarchal social and discursive manipulation on the system of umm al-walad or the ‘mother of the children’ in Najwa Bin Shatwan’s novel The Slave Yards (2020). Bin Shatwan’s portrayal of the deficiency of the system of umm al-walad in potentially safeguarding a mothering space for the female slaves showcases the manner in which the mother‒daughter dyad bears the brunt of both the slave owners’ and legal figures’ control. This investigation reveals that this deficiency results in complicating maternal memory narration. Owing to the fact that the author is a historian who has lamented the historical marginalization of the slave community in nineteenth-century Libya, the mother’s story is tackled in this paper as emblematic of a whole community. In short, the loss of the history of the enslaved community is deeply related to complications of the maternal transmission of memories.