Leaving Other People Alone reads contemporary North American Jewish fiction about Israel/Palestine through an anti-Zionist lens. Aaron Kreuter argues that since Jewish diasporic fiction played a major role in establishing the centroperipheral relationship between Israel and the diaspora, it therefore also has the potential to challenge, trouble, and ultimately rework this relationship. Kreuter suggests that any fictional work that concerns itself with Israel/Palestine and Zionism comes with heightened responsibilities, primarily to make narrative space for the Palestinian worldview, the dispossessed Other of the Zionist project. In engaging prose, the book features a wide range of scholarship and new, compelling readings of texts by Theodor Herzl, Leon Uris, Philip Roth, Ayelet Tsabari, and David Bezmozgis. Throughout, Kreuter develops his concept of diasporic heteroglossia, which is fiction’s unique ability to contain multiple voices that resist and write back against national centres. This work makes an important and original contribution to Jewish studies, diaspora studies, and world literature.
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• Leaving Other People Alone reads, through the lens of diaspora theory and world literature, contemporary works of Jewish fiction written from North America that take Israel/Palestine as its subject matter.
• The book focuses on how writers engage with ideas of belonging, diaspora, home, and Zionism.
• It covers works by canonical Jewish authors such as Theodor Herzl and Philip Roth while also including less well-known writers such as David Bezmozgis and Ayelet Tsabari and famous Palestinian authors Susan Abulhawa and Randa Jarrar.
• Kreuter argues that any work of Jewish fiction that concerns itself with Israel/Palestine and Zionism has a number of heightened responsibilities, primarily the making of narrative space for the Palestinian narrative/worldview.
• Kreuter situates the literature he discusses in its specific historical, political, social, and cultural context, which contributes to his well-contextualised and sophisticated analysis.
• Kreuter has published two books and two volumes of poetry and has won awards for his scholarly writing.
Audience:
Scholars in the fields of Jewish and diaspora literatures, diasporic world literatures, Jewish studies, and Israel/Palestine studies.
