Mystical Transgression of the Body in Jeanette Winterson’s Sexing the Cherry and Elif Shafak’s Pinhan (Sufi)

Both English writer Jeanette Winterson and Turkish writer Elif Shafak are marked through their involvement with feminism. Considering their concern with mysticism as a reaction against the Orthodox religion which they believe gives support to the patriarchal oppression of women, this study compares Winterson’s Sexing the Cherry and Shafak’s Pinhan. Winterson deals with Kabbala mysticism in Sexing the Cherry whereas Shafak adapts Sufism in Pinhan. Both authors depict, in their novels, fluid character identities who reincarnate in different times and spaces in different bodies. This attitude is considered, even though they adapt different types of mysticism, as the reflection of their concern with spirituality, which they develop against the discriminating patriarchal religion. By privileging spiritual reality over the physical reality, they both annihilate women’s subjection to physical laws of patriarchy.