A Language of One's Own: Literary Arabic, the Palestinians and Israel

Since 1948, literature and literary practices have played a significant role in the Palestinian national movement. This book explores the roles of literature and literary practices in the Palestinian national movement since 1948, offering a fresh case study of literary colonial contexts. It demonstrates the impossibility of rebuilding Palestinian national identities within the Zionist regime and highlights the literary embodiment of the ongoing settler colonial condition of Palestinians in Israel.

Format: Hardback
Length: 256 pages
Publication date: 31 July 2023
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Since 1948, literature and literary practices have played significant roles in the Palestinian national movement. This essay aims to demystify these roles and offer a fresh case study of literary colonial contexts. By examining new data, it seeks to re-examine the relationship between language, literature, and socio-political regimes in the Palestinian context. Moreover, it opens a new tradition of addressing literary criticism as part of the Palestinian literary field by incorporating economic, social, and institutional factors into the analyses of literary Arabic.

This essay provides valuable insights into the literary settler colonial context in Palestine, challenging many of the accepted notions regarding the roles of literature and literary practices in the Palestinian national movement. It unlocks the umbilical relation between the language and the nation in the Palestinian and Israeli contexts, freeing literature and literary practices from the preordained roles derived from the national ideologies of both Palestinians and Israelis.

Furthermore, the essay argues that reading and writing practices are a form of social and political agency in themselves. It demonstrates how these practices have been used by state agencies and Palestinian groups to promote and inculcate their preferred versions of Palestinian national identity. By analyzing the ways in which literature and literary practices have been employed in this context, the essay offers a nuanced understanding of the complex dynamics of the Palestinian national movement.

In conclusion, this essay contributes to the growing body of literature on the Palestinian national movement by offering a fresh perspective on the roles of literature and literary practices. It provides new and genuine insights regarding the literary settler colonial context in Palestine, and demystifies many of the accepted notions regarding the roles of literature and literary practices in the Palestinian national movement. By unlocking the umbilical relation between language and the nation, it frees literature and literary practices from the preordained roles derivative from the national ideologies of both Palestinians and Israelis. Moreover, it argues that reading and writing practices are a form of social and political agency in themselves, and that they can be used to promote and inculcate alternative versions of national identity.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781399512015