Shakespeare’s Sister is a Shakespeare

“It would be impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare.” In A Room of One’s own, Virginia Woolf imagines that Shakespeare had a gifted sister, but she did not go to school as him, did not learn grammar and logic and remained at home. One day she hit the road to London, trying to find the way to theatre, poetry and fiction. Shakespeare ended by being The Shakespeare! About his sister Woolf says: “Who shall measure the heat and violence of the poet’s heart when caught and tangled in a woman’s body? Killed herself one winter’s night and lies buried at some cross-roads where the omnibuses now stop outside the Elephant and Castle.”

I would imagine the same end for the same story as Virginia’s. But let us change one small element. Shakespeare helps his sister!

My story is not a work of my own imagination, it is a true one. It is the story of Fadwa Touqan, a Palestinian female poet and writer. Who one day, received a flower from a young boy as an expression of his love to her, and so was punished. Her family decided that she will never ever leave home again. According to Fadwa Touqan she lost the most precious thing to her heart: in that moment School!

Fadwa’s brother is our Shakespeare in this story. Ibrahim Touqan was a famous Palestinian poet, who heard his sister envying his students for learning poetry. So he decided to help her learn poetry. The first poem he taught her was a poem written by a woman. From that moment ever, Fadwa woke up everyday early in the morning and studied till night, building her own school at home with the help of her brother. Fadwa did not kill herself at the end of the story as Shakespeare’s sister did. fadwa became one of the most important Arabic Poets!

Once again I will change one small element in this true story, let us imagine that her brother fought for the right of his sister to go to school instead of teaching her at home. How would the story end? I would like to imagine her ending as a poet in all cases. But would she write the same sentences as the ones she wrote locked in a room of his own?