A Postcolonial Feminist Critique of Yussef El Guindi’s Dark Comedy Threesome

Abstract: The bulk of the Egyptian American playwright Yussef El Guindi’s plays depict the Arab-Muslim experience in the United States. His plays, which constitute immigrant narratives contesting the mainstream hegemonic discourse, portray Arab immigrants striving to integrate into the American mainstream culture while struggling to change their distorted racial profiling and ethnic stereotypes propagated by American media. This article provides a close textual postcolonial feminist reading in the context of trauma theory and orientalist discourse of El Guindi’s dark comedy Threesome. Through the lens of postcolonial feminism, orientalism and trauma theory, the article explores how characters express their transnational Arab American citizenship and sense of belonging thus challenging the distorted long-standing stereotypes of Arab and Muslim women both in the United States and the Arab World. Consequently, they strive to construct counterhegemonic narratives and resistance literature against racial profiling of Arab and Muslim American women.