Breaking Boundaries: Transnationalisms, Border Crossings and Displacements

Panel 3c: Breaking Boundaries: Transnationalisms, Border Crossings and Displacements

‘Rethinking Palestinian Diaspora Fiction’
Much of the recent revival of scholarly interest in the literature of migration, diaspora and exile, has touched upon, or treated in some depth, the refugee experience. In response to the global refugee crisis that began in 2015, a number of fiction books; such as Sea Prayer by Hosseini (2018), Refugee Tales: Volume II by Kay et al. (2017) and Shatila Stories by Gowanlock (2018), have been published to establish empathy with the refugee experience and help literary fiction readers understand the experiences of people displaced from their home countries across the world and across different cultures.

Although the history of the Palestinian problem began many decades ago with the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, there is a scarcity in the literary works; including novels, short stories and poetry, that shed light on this issue in the English language (Al-Ma’amari et al., 2014). Research on the Palestinian problem has been mostly restricted to academic articles, books and studies in English. This paper examines how previous works of literature have portrayed the refugee and migrant experience of uprootedness over the past years, particularly those of Palestinian or Arab background. In doing so, this paper contributes to research on refugees within literary studies, offering a balanced, comprehensive and inclusive portrayal of refugees.

The aim of this paper is, therefore, to cast further light on a topic that has generally evaded scholarly and literary attention and offer a richly nuanced account of Palestinian diaspora within the Western world, ultimately contributing to the body of Palestinian immigrant fiction. Within a more specific literary context, I revisit the notion of transcultural literature and its role in producing transcultural narratives that shed light on themes relating to cultural dislocation and diasporic experiences. In this light, I mention works of fiction particularly affected and shaped by migratory experiences, transcultural movements and postcolonial engagement with Palestinian exile.

I investigate the intersection of literature, race and politics, and the relation between peripatetic notions of identity, place, language, and modes of belonging in contemporary fiction. By mapping the field of postcolonial debates on these issues, I address a number of questions: How can fiction produce new understandings of the Palestinian refugee identity which is an embodiment of “statelessness” and “exile”? How can fiction shift the refugee narrative which often focuses on the trauma story of refugees and overshadow their strength and resilience, further alienating them from full inclusion into their host societies?