Deaf, illiterate poet and his mysterious cuneiform: The portrayal of the disabled father in Kader Abdolah’s novel “Spijkerschrift”

Abstract

When commenting on his literary work, Kader Abdolah regularly links it to his biography, his novels and short stories becoming an important part of his self-representation as a writer. One of the prominent motives in this self-representation is the story of his deaf father, which appears repeatedly in interviews as well as in his literary work, the most significant example being the novel Spijkerschrift [Cuneiform, 2000]. The purpose of this article is to investigate how the deaf father is being portrayed here and what implications this image has for the way Abdolah presents himself to his readership. The analysis is anchored in the theoretical framework provided by disability studies, focusing on literary representations of disability.