In its broadest contours, this article navigates Palestinian literary representations of the Palestinian lives after the Nakba of 1948. This article argues that one of the distinctive features of modern and contemporary Palestinian writing is that the narrative of the (exiled) Palestinian employed contribute to the construction of a Palestinian national narrative. Their personal narratives allow them to open themselves to the deeply disorganised state of their real history and origins, glean them, and then try to construct them in order, to reconstruct a historical experience and piece together all the different narrative fragments to understand what had really happened in Palestine in 1948 and beyond. As such, the Palestinian text serves as a custodian of the Palestinian national history and its author or protagonist the vital witness to the dispossession and loss of the homeland which lay at the root of the bitter tragedy that had blighted all Palestinian lives.

Conference Title

Writing for Liberty Conference

Conference Country

Palestine

Conference Date

April 18, 2015 - April 20, 2018

Conference Sponsor

Lancaster University