Politics and Palestinian Literature in Exile: Gender, Aesthetics and Resistance in the Short Story

by Joseph Farag, Dina Matar (Editor), Joseph R. Farag, Adam Hanieh (Editor)

Overview

Despite, or even because of their tumultuous history, Palestinians are renowned for being prolific cultural producers, creating many of the Arab world's most iconic works of literature. In particular, the Palestinian short story stands out for its unique interplay between literary texts and the political and historical contexts from which they emerge. Palestinian Literature in Exile is the first English language study to explore this unique genre. Joseph Farag employs an interdisciplinary approach to examine the political function of literary texts and the manner in which cultural production responds to crucial moments in Palestinian history. Drawing from the works of Samira Azzam, Ghassan Kanafani and Ibrahim Nasrallah, Farag traces developments in the short story as they relate to the pivotal events of what the Palestinians call the Nakba ('catastrophe'), Naksa ('defeat') and First Intifada ('uprising'). In analysing several as yet un-translated works, Farag makes an original contribution to the subject of exilic identity and subjectivity in Palestinian literature. This book offers the opportunity to engage with literary works as well to learn from a literary account of history.It is a subject of interest for students and scholars of both Arabic literature and Middle East studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781784536558
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	12/30/2016
Series:	SOAS Palestine Studies
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Joseph R. Farag is Assistant Professor of Arab Studies at the University of Minnesota. He holds a PhD from Queen Mary University of London where he served as Lecturer in Middle Eastern Literary Studies. Farag was a research fellow for Forum Transregionale Studien, affiliated with Freie Universitat Berlin. His most recent publication, 'Unacknowledged Pioneer: Gender, Nation, and Class in the Short Stories of Samîra 'Azzàm', appeared in Jourbanal of Arabic Literature (Brill, 2014)."

Table of Contents

Series Foreword xi

Acknowledgments xiii

Note on Transliteration xv

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Nakba

Narrating the Nakba: History, Testimony and Re-Membering 18

Form and Function in Arabic Literature: Realism and the Nation 23

Samira Azzam 34

Ghassan Kanafani's Pioneering Modernism 57

Chapter 2 Naksa

Nakba to Naksa 75

The Palestinians and the Rise and Fall of Pan-Arabism 76

Refugees to Revolutionaries: Palestinian Identity of Resistance and its Antecedents 82

The Reclamation of Dignity and the Battle of Karama 89

Commitment to Resistance 91

Gbassan Kanafani's 'An al-rijal wa-al-banadiq 96

Resistance and its Discontents: Yahya Yakhlif's Nurma wa rajul al-thalj 114

Internal Resistance and the Gender Politics of Patriarchy and Modernism: Liana Badr's 'Ana urid al-nahar' 128

Chapter 3 Intifada

The Intifada and Palestine Studies: Emergence of a Field 137

Prophecy or Perception? Ibrahim Nasrallah's Al-Amwaj al-barriyya 142

Women, Exile and the Intifada in Liana Badr's Jabim dhahabi 171

Conclusion 196

Notes 204

Bibliography 229

Index 239