Magical Realism and Empowering Women in On the Road to Baghdad

Year 2026, Issue: 5, 19 - 26, 26.01.2026

Önder Çetin

Abstract

This article investigates the gender issues which stand out as the most important theme in Güneli Gün’s novel On the Road to Baghdad (1991). The protagonist, Hürü, is represented as an atypical character who rejects the traditional education that is imposed on the female children of the period. Hürü first meets the Ottoman prince Selim on her way to Baghdad and finds a place in his life, yet she can only do so by disguising herself as a boy. Then, she travels in time to eighth century Baghdad, where the Abbasid lord Harun-er Rashid reigns, and meets Shahrazad, the narrator of The Thousand and One Nights. In her magical travel, Hürü, while disguised as a boy, entertains people with her music. The relationship between Hürü and Shahrazad makes the reader think that Hürü is another Shahrazad who is trying, as a woman, to stay alive in the sixteenth century Ottoman Empire. This correlation is the most striking element of the novel in terms of empowering the female identity, and Gün borrows some of the stories from The Thousand and One Nights and rewrites them in her novel to favour the female characters rather than their male counterparts.

Keywords

women empowerment , magical realism , identity , Turkish-American writers , intelligentsia , cultural liminality , exceptionalism , intertextuality

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