Did she “Ask for it” confronting rape culture in Hend Hegazi's normal calm

In her debut novel Normal Calm (2014), the Egyptian**American writer Hend Hegazi uses a simple but eloquent technique to explore one of the most offensive crimes against humanity: rape. Specifically, the novel depicts aspects of rape culture, a sociological concept coined by feminists which emphasises how societies tend to blame rape victims by asserting that they “asked for it”, through the experience of the main character, Amina, an Egyptian-American Muslim living in the United States with her parents. While studying science at a leading university, Amina is raped by one of her friends, Rami, another Egyptian-American Muslim. To investigate her tribulations as a rape victim, this article applies understandings obtained from rape trauma syndrome (RTS), which involves a cluster of psychological reactions occurring following rape. Through RTS, evidence of psychological and social trauma as portrayed in the novel are identified to engage more insightfully with the suffering and confusion of Amina, verify the validity of rape culture as a concept, assess, whether Amina is able to confront the assumptions of rape culture, and finally attempt to determine whether Amina will ever achieve “normal calmness” in her life. Keywords: rape trauma syndrome, Hend Hegazi, Normal Calm, rape culture, rape