Magical Feminism as Ontological Resistance in Mhani Alaoui’s Dreams of Maryam Tair: Blue Boots and Orange Blossoms

Abstract

This study explores Dreams of Maryam Tair: Blue Boots and Orange Blossoms by Mhani Alaoui as a seminal work of Arab magical feminism. Through a close reading of the novel’s narrative form, mythic figures, and carceral landscapes, the analysis examines how magical realism operates as a mode of political and ontological resistance. Central to the argument are the twin concepts of magical supplementation and defamiliarization, which enable the novel to challenge patriarchal historiography, reanimate silenced genealogies, and foreground spiritual and embodied epistemologies. The characters of Maryam, Zohra, and Sheherazade function as magical feminist agents who transform trauma into insurgent knowledge, while sites like Birsoukout and the demons’ lair recast state violence through estranged symbolic architectures. By repositioning Arab women’s writing within the global discourse of magical realism, Alaoui offers a visionary narrative that affirms storytelling as a sacred act of survival, memory, and resistance.