Breaking the Script: The Generational Conjuncture in the Anglophone Palestinian Novel

What is it about?

The portrayals of Palestinian exiles in the English-language novels of Susan Abulhawa and Susan Muaddi Darraj present distinct imaginings of the cross-generational implications of Palestinian displacement in the US context. While Abulhawa maintains the tenor of Third World anti-colonial discourses in her writings, Darraj’s novels generate new challenging cosmopolitan dimen- sions to the Palestinian narrative. However, this encounter between the unfulfilled national voice and the language of the former colonizer is not straightforward. The instrumental roles played by the British Empire and the US in shaping the history and today’s circumstances of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict struc- ture the ways that Palestinian narratives are formulated in the English language. While these historic circumstances offer a legitimate basis for supporting the employment of the national narrative in literature, such a narrative can become increasingly insensitive to the diverse cultural and social settings that are developing among the Palestinian communitas around the globe.

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Why is it important?

Diasporic development of the Palestinian Novel