PALESTINIAN LITERATURE: OCCUPATION AND EXILE

Abstract

This article explores the origins of Palestinian literature vis-à-vis the historical, political and literary backgrounds of Palestine. It argues that understanding the forces that informed Palestinian writers is necessary to appreciate this literature. From the British Mandate to 1948 and its aftermath to the 1967 War and the continued Occupation, the article looks at major themes as writers search for imaginative forms to reconstruct their history and voice their identity. Going beyond the imposed legacy of history, Palestinian writers reclaim their loss and dispossession in miraculous words. The emergence of "Poetry of Resistance" in the 1950s and thereafter is a witness to the resilience of Palestinians inside Israel. Moreover, as Palestinian writing continues to flourish, it builds on early writing, rejecting the "nightmare of history." Palestinian literature is at the heart of the Palestinian struggle. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Headnote

Abstract: This article explores the origins of Palestinian literature vis-à-vis the historical, political and literary backgrounds of Palestine. It argues that understanding the forces that informed Palestinian writers is necessary to appreciate this literature. From the British Mandate to 1948 and its aftermath to the 1967 War and the continued Occupation, the article looks at major themes as writers search for imaginative forms to reconstruct their history and voice their identity. Going beyond the imposed legacy of history, Palestinian writers reclaim their loss and dispossession in miraculous words. The emergence of "Poetry of Resistance" in the 1950s and thereafter is a witness to the resilience of Palestinians inside Israel. Moreover, as Palestinian writing continues to flourish, it builds on early writing, rejecting the "nightmare of history." Palestinian literature is at the heart of the Palestinian struggle.

Keywords: Palestinian literature, Poetry of Resistance, origins of Palestinian literature, 1948, 1967, Palestinian history and literature, occupation and exile

In the first half of the twentieth century, Palestine witnessed major political, social, and literary changes. In order to express the existing historic circumstances and to promote change, writers felt that new literary modes were needed. Poets saw the necessity to legitimate the cause of their people and their history, to counterbalance the colonial threat. The poetry that emerges in Palestine at this juncture has been described as "Poetry of Resistance."1 Poets of resistance, such as Mahmoud Darwish and Samih al Qasim, have participated in the Palestinian people's effort to articulate a conscious identity out of the oppression they experienced since 1948. This creative writing, a response to the dispossession of the homeland and the establishment of a foreign state on two thirds of the historical land of Palestine, addresses concepts of history, nationalism, and the role of literature in the liberation struggle.

Subsequent Palestinian writers, inspired by the earlier "Poetry of Resistance," have written what can also be described as resistance literature. Fadwa Tuqan, for example, shifts her position after encountering Darwish and al Qasim, in the aftermath of the 1967 War. Similarly literary works by Diaspora writers, such as Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, Ghassan Kanafani and Fawaz Turki, among others, complicate the vision represented by the resistance poets and contribute to the making of Palestinian culture and identity. In order to contextualize the literature of Palestine and flesh out the literary movements that shaped it, I will first discuss the emergence of Palestinian literature during the Mandate period and "Poetry of Resistance." Then I will touch on the broader influences of Western movements on Arabic literature at large, and in which Palestinian literature participates. Next, I will briefly sample some of the major themes that Palestinian writers engage in both poetry and fiction. It is my hope to show that this committed literature from Palestine embodies the free spirit of a people whose desire for freedom and self-determination will not die in the face of oppression and political dispossession.

The Beginnings of Palestinian Literature

Although Palestine has always held its place of prominence for Arab Moslems and Christians alike, Jerusalem was not the literary center that Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad, or Beirut had been in the early decades of the twentieth century.2 Nonetheless, patriotic writing flourished during the Mandate period (1922-48). Highly politicized articles in the local magazines and newspapers were the main venues for expressing Palestinian discontent with the Mandate authority, Jewish migration and labor, and land sales. In his Survey of the Modern Literary Trends in Palestine and Jordan (1957)3 from the end of the nineteenth century until the late 1950s, Naser el Din al- Asad reveals that most of the literature that arose in Palestine focused on love poetry, historical and religious essays, educational textbooks and translations. Palestinian writers and intellectuals, like their Arab counterparts during this period, launched projects of translation from English, French and Russian literatures into Arabic, which played a significant role in the contact between the literary traditions of the East and West. Highlighted in these translations were the novel, the short story and literary criticism, as well as the modernist poetry of T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. Another contribution from this generation of writers was the establishment of literary journals, affording forums for publication to the rising writers, as well as popularizing literary interest among the general public.

Whereas the journalistic writing of the first decades of the twentieth century was abundant and politically engaged, literary production veered away from the political trauma that befell Palestine. Indeed, with a few exceptions, Palestinian literature of this period remained sentimental, romantic and classical. Al- Asad mentions a few patriotic poets whose poetry gained popularity. Among these are: Mahmoud al-Hout, Mouin Tawfiq Bseiso, Abdul-Karim al-Karmi (Abu-Salma), Khalil Zaqtan, and Haroun Hashem Rashid. This poetry of the 1940s and 1950s describes the Palestinian exodus, depicting also the disillusionment with Arab governments and international justice.4 Some of Bseiso 's poems portray honesty and realism, as well as a resistant spirit that anticipates much of the 1960s "Poetry of Resistance" that would surface in Palestine/Israel, in the aftermath of the 1948 Nakba. The poem "Challenge" is a good example:

I fear no fetters; fasten me with chains

Whoever lived in the land of earthquakes

Fears no earthquakes

For whom are you setting up these ropes?

For whom are you tightening these fetters

You will not extinguish these fires

No matter how hard you blow

For the people have lit these fires

Ceaselessly, in caravans, they are being transported.5

Salma Khadra Jayyusi concurs with al-Asad when she adds that Palestinian poets of the 1930s and 1940s distinguished themselves, long before the movement of al-Iltizam (commitment) became popular among Arab literati in the 1950s and 1960s.6 Most prominent among Palestinian poets of this period were: Abd al-Raheem Mahmoud (1913-1948), Abu-Salma (1911-1984) and Ibrahim Tuqan (1905-1941). The popularity of the poetry of both Mahmoud and Abu-Salma, Jayyusi continues, rests on their highly charged expressions of patriotism, call for unity and sacrifice for the homeland. Both poets blend the lament for the loss of the homeland with love of the land and the readiness to fight, with the hope of the "Return."

Almost all literary critics agree that the most eminent patriotic Palestinian poet of this period is Ibrahim Tuqan. Known for his spontaneity, clear expression and accessible diction, Tuqan shares the patriotic fervor that pervades the poetry of his two contemporaries, but his accomplishments claim higher marks. According to Jayyusi, Tuqan is the only poet of his generation who has contributed to the aesthetic values of Palestinian poetry. Blending the humorous with the sarcastic, the patriotic with the personal, affords his poetry a popularity and versatility unmatched by other poets.7 His aesthetic accomplishment is also enhanced by his intellectual and national consciousness, Jayyusi concludes. Not only does Tuqan direct his anger at British/Zionist leaders, but also against contemporary Palestinian and Arab leaders. His disillusionment with Palestinian leaders is best expressed in the poem "My Country": "My country's brokers are a band who shamefully survive and lead an easy, splendid life." Having forfeited their responsibilities, the poet adds, the leaders pretend to be the land "saviours" and "protectors."

But they are its ruin

it is bought and sold through their hands

Even the newspapers

Shield them, though we know the truth!8

As far as fiction is concerned, Palestinian writers did not produce distinctive forms of the short story or the novel during the first half of the twentieth century. As in the rest of the Arab world, the production of fictional works in Palestine remained an experimentally struggling genre.9 While there are rich narrative forms in Arabic literary tradition, Jayyusi concedes, neither the oral nor the written forms were inspirational in the early stages of modern Arabic fiction. It was to the modern Western model that Palestinian (and Arab) fiction writers turned. This manifested itself mainly in the surge for translations of fiction from European languages into Arabic, a few original works, and early pronouncements at what constitutes good writing. For example, Khalil Ibrahim Baydas (1875-1949), the father of Palestinian fiction, spoke of fiction as the "greatest foundation of civilization," which influences apeople's customs and morals since it reflects life with all its values.10 Ahmad Shakir al-Karmi (1894-1927) also emphasized the moral lessons contained in fictional works and the benefits they may render society and the Arabic language.11

Al- Warith The Heir) by Baydas is the first known Palestinian novel. It appeared in 1920.12 Set in Syria, the novel tells the story of Astire, a young beautiful Jewish actress/singer, and Aziz, a Syrian orphan who was raised by his uncle as the son/ heir he never had. The novel attempts to probe the destructive love relationship between Astire and Aziz but fails to go beyond the stereotypical attitudes of Arabs toward Jews. Another important novel that gained popularity at this time is A Chicken 's Memoir (1943) by Ishaq Musa al-Husaini (d. 1990). A parable on the sociopolitical conflict between Palestinians and Jews, the novel's message remains didactic and idealistic, lacking political consciousness. These early fictional attempts by Palestinians were generally entertaining, experimental and insubstantial as far as their aesthetic value or attraction of readership. The predominant social message, which overrode the political consciousness, characterized the literary output of this period. 13 Jayyusi rightly suggests that "The general outlook toward political struggle was an idealistic one, embodying the particular values of courage, self-sacrifice, heroism, resistance, endurance, and redemption, etc."14

Whereas the poetic medium was suited for the expression of such idealistic abstractions, they were not the stuff of fiction. In order to produce an aesthetically valuable fiction, the Palestinian writer did not only have to learn new art form(s), but also needed to digest and internalize the political situation imposed by Zionism.15 While I do not contest Jayyusi 's analysis as to the lack of an aesthetically valuable body of fictional works in Palestine in the early decades of the twentieth century, I suggest that perhaps other factors may have played into the picture. A major reason might have been the general lack of a clearly articulated consciousness among Palestinians as a whole, given the fact that the writer is the product of her environment. Having been under Ottoman rule since 1516, Palestine was placed under the British Mandate as soon as the Ottoman Empire fell. General Allenby entered Palestine in 1917, and the Mandate was officially legalized by the League of Nations in 1922. With that being said, Palestinian writers had had neither the opportunities, nor the education or the needed national institutions to generate a well- formulated political consciousness or a clear aesthetic. As Rashid Khalidi proposes, the lack of a Palestinian state and its supporting institutions is one of the major causes behind the belated rise of Palestinian political consciousness.'6

To speak of significant innovations to the art of the novel and the short story, one has to wait until the 1950s and 1960s.17 Among Palestinian writers who have contributed to these genres are: Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, Samira Azzam, and Ghassan Kanafani. It is noteworthy to mention that before 1967 Palestinian fiction writing was dominated by writers living in the Diaspora: Azzam in Lebanon, Kanafani in Kuwait and Lebanon, and Jabra in Iraq. Of these writers living in the Diaspora, much of the work of Kanafani and Jabra is widely recognized, as also seen in its availability to English readers.18

On the other hand, the voice of Samira Azzam (1924-1967) as an early feminine voice to the art of fiction has not received its due recognition. She published three collections of short stories in her lifetime, and two more were published posthumously19 The collection of stories in Al-Zill al-Kabeir The Long Shadow) (1956)20 demonstrates Azzam's pioneering accomplishment in depicting human relations and characterization, within a realistic setting. Although the political theme seeps into some of the stories, the majority of the stories in the collection explore the socio-economic problems of ordinary people, as well as human relations in general. Additionally, many of the stories dramatize the gender issue. For example, the story entitled The Long Shadow is the story of a sixty-year-old woman in search of a man who could transport her to the realm of beauty, art and genius. An interior monologue of an un-named narrator, the narrative relates the ongoing debate between the perception about women and the narrator's own perception of herself. Whereas the narrator aspires for what she thinks is higher intellectual calling, she has had an internal struggle against old residues and feelings about traditionally designated roles of men and women.

Similarly, fiction in the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel proper would come to fruition in the aftermath of the 1967 War. In addition to Emile Habiby, writers such as Mohammad Naffa', Mohammad 'Ali Taha and Tawfiq Fayyad are a few who emerged in Palestine/Israel. A major fiction writer, Habiby's works have received much acclaim. His novel The Secret Life of Saeed, the Ill-Fated Pessoptìmist(ì914fl is considered the Palestinian national epic. A mélange of comedy and tragedy, history and satire, realism and fantasy, the novel has earned Habiby Israel's highest award for literature. On the other hand, the short story remains the medium for both Naffa' and Taha. Although their subjects overlap in depicting the life of Palestinians in Israel, the variety of their styles adds to the aesthetic diversity of Palestinian fiction. Whereas Taha's depiction is realistic, Naffa' resorts to monologues of abstract declamation. For instance, Taha's short story, "Faris Ratccba," weaves the story of a young Palestinian, Faris, with resistance to authority. Single-handedly, Faris was able to shake the villagers' timid complacency toward the Mukhtar and the Israeli authority. Though the didactic message is clear, the story details the life of children, schooling and their coming of age in the village of Um al-Hijara. Mixed with the desire for resistance and justice are the children's boyish pranks, religious consciousness and fear of authority. In contrast "The Uprooted" by Naffa', a series of sketches about the loss of the land, family and roots, may be classified as a collection of short stories that delineates peasant life. Combining various narrative styles, the sketches range from abstract monologues to realistic renditions of the simple village life that has been shattered by the arrival of "the strangers." Israeli soldiers appear suddenly, take over the town and drive its people out with their planes, in hours.

The first section of this article has given a brief survey of the origins of modern Palestinian literature. During Mandate Palestine, no innovative literary modes were introduced. With the exception of Ibrahim Tuqan, Palestinian poets of the 1930s and 1940s broke no new ground in terms of aesthetic value or tonal and thematic expectations. Although a few poets rose to prominence, only Ibrahim Tuqan could venture outside politics into the comic, the tragic and the sarcastic. Yet his and other poets' modes were confined to classical forms. Palestinian poetry would have to wait two decades or so for the emergence of what is now referred to as the "Poetry of Resistance," which would come to the fore in the period following the 1 967 War.

Since the literary history of Palestine is interwoven with the larger Arab tradition, it is necessary to touch upon the literary and intellectual movements that played a role in the development of modern Arabic literature. Of note is the impact on the Arab world generated by contact with the West at this particular juncture of the twentieth century.

Arabic Literature and Contact with the West

The historical period covered here is what is usually referred to as "Modernism" and "Postmodernism," which witnessed the two world wars. The Arab world was directly and indirectly involved in the two wars. In World War I, the Arab masses were mobilized by Sharif Hussein of Mecca to fight alongside of the Allies. The Arab people, who had been ruled by the Ottomans since 1516, had hoped to gain independence and establish a unified Greater Syria (that included Palestine) under the Sharif. The leading Western powers, however, had other plans for the spoils of the Ottoman Empire. Britain and France carved the Arab world between them. So instead of aiding the rising Arab people into forming independent nation-states, a Mandate system was devised to keep the region under control. Arab hopes for freedom and independence were thwarted by a new form of colonialism.

The sociopolitical changes that overtook the Arab world, then, during the first half of the twentieth century called for shifts in perception among the intellectual and literary communities. Inspired by European Modernism, modern Arab writers would synthesize intellectual and literary ideas from Marxism, Existentialism, Surrealism, and Psychoanalysis. Most notable has been the influence of T. S. Eliot and Jean-Paul Sartre, according to writer/literary critic Jabra Ibrahim Jabra.22 He suggests that the first half of the twentieth century witnessed what may be termed "a renaissance" in the intellectual and literary scenes in the Arab world. Inspired by contact with the literary and philosophical movements from Europe, a fusion of sorts took place. Along with the vigorous revival of Arabic traditions, innovative experimentation in form and content arose.23 Eliot's poetry and some of his essays, which were translated into Arabic, informed writing in the three capitals of the Arab world: Beirut, Cairo, and Baghdad, Jabra adds. Eliot's "The Waste Land," his use of free verse and his critical essays appealed to Arab writers in general. Jabra adds that Eliot's revolutionary poetics and view of history; his articulation and ability to transcend the personal into the universal; and his concept of the individual talent and tradition inspired Arab poets in the aftermath of the 1948 Disaster. Having experienced the Palestine debacle and its implications, the Arabs felt "The Waste Land" fit their political and psychological situation perfectly. "A whole order of things had crumbled," Jabra states, "and the theme of the sterile 'cracked earth' thirsty for rain seemed the most insistent of all." Near Eastern myths were woven into Biblical and Judeo-Christian themes to reflect the "parched land waiting for rain": fertility restored through sacrifice (of Jesus or the martyr), death and resurrection.24

As far as existentialist thought is concerned, Sartre's essay entitled "What is Literature?" made a strong impact on the Arabs, especially on Palestinian writers. With its emphasis on engagement and literature, Sartre perceives writing as the inter-play between the writer's freedom and that of the reader in a democratic society. Writing is perceived as an exigency and a gift, the moral imperative being at the heart of the aesthetic. ". . .Whether he is an essayist, a pamphleteer, a satirist, or a novelist, whether he speaks only of individual passions or whether he attacks the social order," Sartre insists, "the writer, a free man addressing free men, has only one subject - freedom.... Writing is a certain way of wanting freedom: once you have begun, you are engaged, willy-nilly."25 As the discussion below will demonstrate, almost all Palestinian writers are politically committed writers, and some joined the Communist Party.

Moreover, Arab literary renaissance has had challenges from adherents to classical forms and traditions. Jayyusi suggests that there were three areas which demonstrate the problems that arose as a result of contact with the West. For one thing, a schism in poetic sensibility took place. The traditionalists-loyalists, who upheld old forms, viewed contact with the West as incompatible with inherited conventions and values. On the other hand, younger poets welcomed the new experimentation in forms and ideas. Although eventually newer forms, especially free verse, would gain ground, the clash between the "old and new" was fierce. The end result of the battle, however, was not the success of one group over the other, Jayyusi points out. Both traditionalclassical poetry and modern-radical poetry continued to be produced during this period. Both schools also generated committed patriotic poetry. Jayyusi adds that the early decades of the twentieth century witnessed a clash between theory and practice. While the early decades saw a prevalence of theory over practice, the 1950s in particular would undergo a subtle change whereby poetry would be initiated by the poet's concrete experience.26 Palestinian poets in Israel were among the leading poets to launch a literature committed to the reality of their colonial condition. They articulate a heroic resistance and personal sacrifice in great simplicity, both tragic and lyrical at the same time. "The blood of the god, giving hope and fertility to the land, is their own blood, the blood of a whole new generation. Their poetry is witness to it."27

Palestinian Poets in Palestine/Israel

To interrogate the dominating colonial ideology operating in Palestine, therefore, writers found an alternative in Western literary modes. Whether it was the British Romantic / Victorian or the French classicist tradition, different writers find their niche in different literary and cultural modes. Furthermore, romanticism, symbolism and surrealism were also popular during the first half of the twentieth century. Many poets experimented with these modes with varying successes and failures. But ultimately a new route needed to be paved, for romanticism tended to fall into "sentimentalism, verbosity, dilution [and] the excessive use of adjectives and emotional exhibitionism," Jayyusi suggests. Similarly, symbolism appeared abstracted, uncommitted and introspective. Practitioners of the symbolist mode, an elite group in their ivory towers, failed to respond to the turmoil the Arab (and Palestinian) masses felt in their struggle for liberation. Neoclassical experimentation, in which most patriotic poetry of this period was written, remained oratorical, self-assertive and exhibitionist.28

Leading poets who remained in Palestine after 1948 speak of the alienation they feel toward the use of classical Arabic, polished language and proper subjects for poetry. Since the 1960s, they have opted for the language of simple folk to render a realistic picture of Palestinian lives and desires under Israeli rule. The following lines by Samih al-Qasim exemplify his negative stance toward the classical ideal:

They lived, without a word for company,

They died, without a word for company,

For the classical tongue, polished pages, the elegant prose,

The expensive ink, and silver pens / Languished in captivity.

Those on top enjoyed their charms,

While the simple folk / Lived without a word for company,

Died, without a word for company.

So dip into the depths of the virgin well;

Pour a drink for the worker, the baker, and the children of the alley,

For people are thirsty.

Write of new zeal and dedication, / Write of the nation's dreams.

Blessed be the written word, proud as a beacon in the night;

Woe to the tumbling ivory towers, / And to the captives of the mimics.29

What is remarkable is that each writer inflects her choice with her own personal and cultural context, hence the variegated tapestry that makes up the diverse identity of the Palestinian. This fluid, overlapping, shifting ethos that ceaselessly resists uniformity and mono-vision should be at the heart of any discussion of Palestinian imaginative literature.

Emile Nakhleh states that unlike Palestinian writers outside Israel, Palestinian writers inside Israel have operated under two political realities: the reality of the Israeli state, and the reality of the Arab nationalist movement. Expressing indignation at being unjustly treated as a minority in Israel and demanding equal rights with Jewish citizens, Palestinians simultaneously felt they were an indivisible part of the Arab nation and voiced their pride in Arabism.30 Darwish's early poem entitled "Song for Men" typically incorporates the two major themes that occupy him in the 1960s - faith in Arabism and the success of rebellion against injustice:

Come, comrades of chains / and sorrows,

Let's march, never to be defeated,

For we'll lose nothing but our biers!

To the skies we shall sing, / Our hopes we shall send.

We shall sing / In factories, quarries, and farms;

We shall leave our hideouts / And face the sun.

"They are Arabs, they are / barbarians,"

Our enemies will chant.

Yes, we are Arabs! / We know how to build

factories, homes, hospitals, / Schools, bombs, and missiles.

We also write music and beautiful / poetry.31

If Darwish falls for the binary of Us/them, it is understandable since he was attempting to negate the image of the Arab as "Other." In the 1960s, he was writing out of Israeli jail, and he most likely felt the need to defy oppression that had prompted his rebellion. In fact during this period of his career, Darwish had found in Marxism and Communism a more viable ideology, an alternative to Western/Israeli imperialism.

Marxism and Palestinian Writing

In Palestine/Israel, Marxist ideology and the forums that Rakah, the Israeli Communist Party, made available offered Palestinian writers a venue for self-expression. Except for Rakah, all Israeli political parties were Zionist and anti-Arab; Palestinians were unwelcomed as members. Only the non-Zionist Rakah welcomed Palestinians into its ranks since the 1950s, and for which the party gained support from them after 1965.32 Darwish, al-Qasim and Habiby belonged to Rakah whose newspapers, magazines, clubs and other organizations were instrumental in publishing and disseminating Palestinian literary works. Affiliation with Rakah was one way of circumventing Israeli censorship and oppression of the freedom of speech. As far as writing and publication were concerned, the Emergency Regulations implemented strict censorship laws. Writer-journalist Fowzi El-Asmar sheds light on this issue by saying that all publications by Palestinian writers were subjected to censorship where many big white pages would be returned with a large "X" on them, denoting elimination.33

Darwish was an officially active Communist; he had joined the Communist Party in 1961, and he remained active until his departure from Israel in 1971. Habiby represented the Party on behalf of Palestinians in the Knesset from 1953 to 1972. The Communist magazines were instrumental in connecting Palestinian writers and community to radical writing in the Arab world through pirated editions,34 as well as in getting the word out by providing the opportunity for publication. It is important to note that poet Fadwa Tuqan remained outside all party affiliations.

Elia Zureik concedes that although Rakah is pro-Moscow and has espoused Palestinian nationalist feelings and anti-Zionist ideology, it would be a mistake to consider it a revolutionary party. It remained a minority party operating within the laws of the state.35 Jiryis also notes that Rakah did not hesitate to support the government against its Palestinian members, if the "state security" was threatened. He adds that the Communist Party has neither fully supported anti-Zionist protest, nor Palestinian nationalist demands. It has even resorted to expelling Palestinian party members from its ranks and refused to publish writing deemed too nationalistic.36 Additionally, seen by the Israeli public, the press and the government as a traitor party, supporters of Rakah were referred to by one Israeli official as "enemies of the state."37 Likewise, Ian Lustick admits that "the separation of Rakah from the rest of the society is so complete and its illegitimacy so widely accepted that its existence serves basically to reinforce the institutional isolation of Arabs from the Jewish sector...."38 The alignment of Palestinians with the Communists, therefore, exacerbated the alienation and marginalization of Palestinians within the Jewish majority.

Despite the limited impact of the Communist Party on Israeli politics, Rakah has had a significant role in politicizing Palestinians. More importantly for my discussion, Rakah played a major role in opening avenues for the rising writers and journalists. According to Ashrawi, the Communist Party's newspaper, al-Ittihad (1944) and its monthly al-Jadid (established in 1951) were the only publications that accepted writing by Palestinians in the 1940s and 1950s - hence the popularity of Communist writing in the pioneering literature of Palestine.39

Themes of Resistance

Given the turmoil the Palestinians experienced in the first half of the twentieth century, Palestinian writing called for national resistance and mobilized the masses to be steadfast in their resistance to the colonial powers. Speaking of the common leitmotifs Palestinian (and Arab) poets address at this juncture, Jabra suggests that the creative writing deals with "freedom, anxiety, protest, struggle, social progress, individual salvation, rebellion, [and] heroism."40 The emergence in Palestine/Israel of what is now known as the "Poetry of Resistance" arose to express the people's desires and hopes and to inspire them in their struggle. "Identity Card" by Mahmoud Darwish,41 considered by many the Palestinian national poem, is a good example.

The speaker in "Identity Card" proudly affirms his Arab ancestry, defying the denigration of the Arab and the erasure of history. The opening lines, "Record! / 1 am an Arab," repeated five times in the two-page poem, highlight the difficulties of obtaining legal status under the new Israeli state:

Put it on record. / I am an Arab / and the number of my card is fifty thousand

I have eight children / and the ninth is due after summer.

What's there to be angry about?

Put it on record. / I am an Arab

Working with comrades of toil in a quarry.

I have eight children / For them I wrest the loaf of bread,

The clothes, and exercise books / from the rocks

And beg for no alms at your door,

Lower not myself at your doorstep.

What's there to be angry about?

The Palestinian speaker feels no shame regarding his demeaned socioeconomic status. His family is living on his wages as a laborer for the new owners of his land, but his priorities and responsibilities are clear: feeding and educating his children. Nonetheless, the speaker insists on maintaining human dignity and pride in his Arab heritage and identity.

Because Israel expropriated the land of Palestine, Palestinians inside Israel became refugees in their own country. Of note is the speaker's observation of his peasant ancestry. It is one whose legal titles to the land seem immaterial, since the people always belonged there:42

Put it on record. I am an Arab. / I am a name without a title,

Patient in a country where everything / Lives in a whirlpool of anger.

My roots

Took hold before the birth of time

Before the burgeoning of the ages,

Before the cypress and olive trees,

Before the proliferation of weeds.

My father is from the family of the plough

Not from highborn nobles.

And my grandfather was a peasant

Without line or genealogy.

My house is a watchman's hut

Made of sticks and reeds.

Does my status satisfy you?

I am a name without a surname.

Though the Palestinian's ancestry boasts no pedigree or refined manners, the speaker is proud to be a descendant of peasants who worked the land and whose connections with the land seem to have been established before the beginning of time. There is a revealing interplay between identity and the land, a major trope for the Palestinians. The speaker further addresses the Israelis and speaks about history in its nakedness: "You have stolen the orchards / of my ancestors / and the land / which I cultivated /Along with my children / And you left us with those rocks." This insemination of history into the creative work is a revolutionary act in itself! Moreover, Darwish's persona wonders if the state is going to take the stones too. Angry and assertive, the speaker, nonetheless, contains his anger by translating it into resistant hope for the future, declaring that he does not hate man, nor does he encroach on other people's life. Darwish's early poem seems to dwell on the immediate, external effects of dispossession rather than on the deeper psychological effects of colonization. Darwish's later poems, in addition to being committed, dwell on more complex aspects of the colonial project that constrain and suffocate Palestinians.

In Palestine, then, oral forms of protest inspired early resistance poetry, such as popular poetry at homes, weddings and funerals. The resistance poetry of Mahmoud Darwish and Samih al-Qasim, which precedes the emergence of narrative due to the directness and immediacy of the poetic form, is the first articulation of Palestinian identity. As these poets and others tapped into oral history and culture, their poetry did not need the gestation period that other artistic forms, such as narrative and drama need to develop, hence its early emergence and dissemination. It is the novel and other narrative forms, however, that probe the deeper impact of the 1948 Disaster. Dubbed by Palestinians "al-Nakba," 1948 forced approximately 750,000 Palestinians out of their homeland, many of whom became refugees and who continue to live in refugee camps until the present day.

Resistance in the Diaspora

Writers who write out of the refugee camps have had a different experience from those who remained inside Palestine/Israel. For instance Fawaz Turki, who grew up in Lebanon, speaks of the psychological impact of growing up as a Palestinian refugee. The experience, he says, has "ravished Palestinian being": "It ravished the law and the order of the reality that we saw around us. It defeated some of us. It reduced, distorted and alienated others."43 Being an exiled refugee in Lebanon turns out to be devastating and dehumanizing for young Turki, the experiences of which he describes in two autobiographical accounts.44 He writes that as a refugee lining up obsequiously outside the UN depots, he felt he had been "robbed of [his] sense of purpose and sense of worth as a human being." To many refugees, hate and bitterness become natural feelings; to others, resignation.45 The poem "Beirut" captures Turki 's bitter memories of the Lebanese capital where, as a child, he would roam the streets selling chicklets (chewing gum):

Beirut is a dead rat / lying motionless / in the pocket of the Third World

speaking with a heavy French accent

as she pronounces her Arabic ownhood. / In the river beds of affluence

the waters have dried up / and disinherited selfhood / walks in rags

looking for a Western wedding to attend /At night she goes to the casino

to place her bets on the roulette table / using a fistful of classified ads

from France Soir I At night she returns home, / to her pocket,

and the darkness frightens her/ as she drives / on Artificial Road

where the mirage of a mule appears / and she runs her car off a cliff.46

In Dispossessed: The Ordeal of the Palestinians, David Robert Gilmore describes the conditions of the refugee camps set up by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Middle East (UNRWA) as "disgusting," since facilities for public health conditions or sanitation did not exist in these camps.47 He adds that in 1955, a Jewish Rabbi compared the refugee camps with Nazi concentration camps.48 Gilmore concedes that although introducing electricity and running water at communal points has made improvements, the conditions by and large remain "unsanitary, overcrowded, and degraded" where malnourished children and jobless men are countless.49 To probe the degrading conditions under which they live, in refugee camps and elsewhere, Palestinian writers turn to narrative.

Palestinian Narrative

Barbara Harlow50 points out the differences between the use of the lyric and that of narrative in encapsulating a resistance literature. Whereas poems of resistance may seek to redefine the cultural images that underwrite the collective action, narrative reconstructs and analyzes the past contextually and symbolically to open up possibilities for the future, Harlow states.51 Whether in the form of personal memoir, autobiography, or fiction, narrative of resistance seeks different historical endings that are already implicit in the analysis and reconstruction of the historical situation.52 Harlow adds that to represent the historical, cultural and ideological context that shaped the narrative of choice, a resistant writer challenges certain literary conventions that have to do with temporal chronology and continuity.53 Such writers by necessity seek to rewrite and correct the past since they give prominence to the "native" version. Consequently, not only are historical and political events reworked, but literary periodization is also revised. Experimentation with structure, plot, character and setting are also revolutionized to correspond to the historical context at hand.54

Fadwa Tuqan's A Mountainous Journey, An Autobiography (1985)55 is a good illustration of the experimentation to which Harlow refers. Tuqan's narrative integrates the coming of age motif with the communal national consciousness, merging the personal and the public identity. Notably, the journey of the witnessnarrator of young Fadwa begins with the inner quest for freedom and independence rather than the outer struggle for a nation-state. Tuqan relates how she battles with family, city, literary tradition and foreign occupation to name her identity as a poet and a spokesperson for her Palestinian community. Additionally, Tuqan's autobiography, presented as lived experience, records and analyzes the forces that were behind the continued defeats of the Palestinian people. Her documentation of the weakness and betrayal of "the politics of the notables"56 and the repression of the Palestinian national cause by Hashemite Jordan is unprecedented in the literature. It should be noted that Tuqan was writing from the West Bank, to which many Palestinians moved after 1948 and stayed since 1967. Many Palestinians continue to live in refugee camps to this day. (In 201 3, the West Bank and Gaza are still occupied by Israel despite the quasi state of the Palestinian Authority.) So Palestinians in the Diaspora - Gaza, the West Bank, the Arab world and other parts of the world - have suffered exile and dispossession. The sensibility of Palestinian writers has been shaped by one or more of the following factors: settler colonialism, refugee camps, military occupation and labor exploitation. Whereas the historical outcome has been total denial of Palestinian existence as a people and the establishment of another state on their homeland, the literary output has reclaimed the lost land, albeit in words, reconstructed the denied history, and emphasized the Palestinian voice. Some of the common themes of Palestinian literature are: the consequences of the colonial condition; the impact of racism; a dehumanizing sense of identity; uprootedness from land and heritage; exile and return; and cultural colonialism. While writers urge their communities to persevere in their defiant resistance to the historical condition, a strong faith that change will come animates the call for national liberation.

The land, as a real entity and a metaphor, is the most dominating presence in Palestinian literature. According to Turki, "Landhood," as he coins it, is the raison d'être of Palestinian being and consciousness. Products of an essentially peasant community, Palestinians feel a "mystical affinity" with their land as the source of their human and social systems. Living, acquiring memories and maturing into consciousness were all done on the land. There is interdependence with the land, which Western empiricism and notions of progress cannot comprehend. The ideals of the Palestinian struggle are rooted in the life process of man and land: "In this world-view," Turki elaborates, "man and his environment are two interdependent subsystems, never separable in their functions. They make up a unified system of life- facts that can be separated only by abstraction. A Palestinian estranged from his land is, in effect, repudiated as a human being."57

A more recent voice from the refugee camps is that of the poet/novelist Ibrahim Nasrallah (b. 1954). In his first novel, entitled Prairies of Fever,5* Nasrallah experiments with a non-linear, multi-vocal narrative voice. After 1948 and 1967 and with the rise of the oil-rich countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and others in the Gulf, many Palestinians found themselves working in the remote areas of these countries. Teacher Mohammad, Ustadh, in Prairies represents one such example. In addition to being placed in an outpost that seems foreign and inhospitable, he is plagued with hallucinations, nightmares, "phobias" that conflate reality with fantasy.

Diversity must be noted within the Palestinian literary context, however. The experience, education and sociopolitical status of writers who grew up under Israeli rule differed extensively from Palestinians who reestablished themselves in the Arab world and the West. Although life under Arab rule was not exactly synonymous with having the state Palestinians had hoped for, they grew up within other Arab communities, traditions and language. When in 1 97 1 Darwish left Israel and arrived in Cairo, it was his first encounter with the Arab world. He says that the first thing that struck him was seeing and hearing Arabic everywhere - from street signs to street language to radio and television broadcasts, etc. Having grown up in Israel with Hebrew being the official language, reading and writing poetry in Arabic was a form of resistance for Darwish. He says he found the experience of being in Cairo thrilling (As the Land). Additionally, in most Arab countries where Palestinians were offered a place to live, Arabic education was available at public schools or schools established by UNRWA.

Class difference also plays a role in shaping Palestinian writers who come from all strata of society. Not all 750,000 Palestinians became refugees or lived in camps. The Tuqan family, for example, was not dispossessed. When the hordes of refugees swept the area surrounding Nablus after the 1948 exodus, Fadwa is touched. She describes the events in Autobiography. She writes that in 1948, the "roof fell in on Palestine." "Thousands of refugees, moving eastward in their flight, arrived in Nablus. Houses, mosques, schools and the caves in Mounts 'Aibal and Jerzim were jam-packed with them."59 But the event did not cause a radical shift in the poet's view. Tuqan would have to wait almost twenty years for the shift to take place in the aftermath of the 1967 War. Then, her experience of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank inspired the personal poet to turn into one of the strongest committed voices of her people.

Many Palestinian refugees, moreover, were able to relatively overcome their economic difficulties through education and hard work. Arab countries, especially the oil-rich countries, offered entrepreneurial opportunities to many Palestinians who have thus far established a reputation for hard work, competitiveness and advancement, though life has been a continuous struggle. These experiences also filter into the literature. For example, Ghassan Kanafani who grew up in a refugee camp in Syria would later become a teacher in that same camp. Then, he moved to Kuwait to teach and write there. His novella Men in the Sun (1978) dramatizes the fictitious attempt and tragic death of three Palestinian characters who are being smuggled into Kuwait, in search of job opportunities. The novella is one of Kanafani 's most poignant stories in which he also depicts the egotistical inclination of some people who are willing to feed off the Disaster, for their own material benefits.

Fiction writer Sahar Khalifeh (b. 1941), who writes out of the West Bank and Jordan, explores the impact of Israeli occupation on Palestinian labor after 1967, in Wild Thorns. ? With five novels to her credit, Khalifeh's writing is testimony to her commitment to the Palestinian cause and feminism. Memoirs of an Unrealistic Woman (1992)61 is an interior monologue of Afaf and her rise to consciousness. Memoirs is a rejection of traditional stories about women, in favor of her specific story. The stories told her by her mother, aunts and Urn Walid open with dark, narrow alleys and end with mansions that are sunny and spacious, filled with palm trees.62 Despite the desert and scary pool of her childhood, Afaf romanticizes about meeting the man of her dreams whose gentle voice is soft and quiet, and whose eyes reflect understanding.63 When calling her, she fantasizes, he does so with a tone that implies no authority or the desire to dominate. Afaf refuses to accept the fate of having been born a female, a mistake, and she rebels against the fatalistic concept of the "realistic life," as described by all the women around her. Written candidly and lucidly, Memoirs is Khalifeh's daring feminist stance against the highly traditional culture that continues to relegate women to home and kitchen.

Conclusion

As one considers Palestine and the role of imaginative literature in what may be perceived as part of the national liberation struggle in this case, it seems plausible to argue that at particular historical periods, literature might be expected to play an overt political role. How does the political event, history as time, aid in the evolution of literary form and content that will transform the legacy of loss and dispossession into creative possibilities? What form(s) does resistance take, as far as the writer is concerned? What changes are implicated in the concept of the revolutionary/ resistant writer? How are the individual and the community enabled to imaginatively transcend history as time into the realm of history as myth? And finally, what is the relationship between politics and writing, between autobiography and fiction? This discussion has attempted to answer these questions.

In discussing Palestinian literature, it is imperative to consider the specific context from which a writer is writing and the language in which s/he writes. Despite the differences in personal growth, educational background and space from which Palestinian writers voice their identity, they all write in Arabic.64 The issue of language has been a unifying factor for the Palestinians. Edward Said affirms that the Palestinian writer's use of Arabic and the persistent struggle to excel at it have worked as a unifying force in Palestine, as well as on a pan- Arab scale.65 Additionally, Palestinian writers in Israel affiliate themselves with the rich, established Arabic literary heritage. However, although Arabic has a long-standing tradition and civilization, Said suggests, the Arabic language has been denigrated by Israel. Arabic is also unfamiliar in the West and therefore maligned and misunderstood, he adds. For the non-native speaker of Arabic, Arabic literature has to be mediated through translation and interpretation.66

This article has explored the emergence of modern Palestinian literature from the Mandate period, the 1950s and 1960s, and through the second half of the twentieth century. I have demonstrated how as Palestinian writers struggle with the nightmare of their history, they tap into Arabic literary tradition, the Arabic language, and Western intellectual and literary traditions. Palestinian writers insist on voicing their distinctive identity. Bending this mélange of influences to their needs, Palestinian writing emerges as diverse, imaginative and revolutionary in both content and form. As Palestinian writers were shaped by their history and specific milieu, they have sought to reconstruct that history, set the record straight and reclaim the lost homeland. Above all, Palestinian literature reflects the dignity, steadfastness and human resilience of its people. In discussing what is referred to as Palestinian "literature of resistance," this article suggests that an appreciation of this literature must be dealt with from within the political and literary contexts of the twentieth century that overtook the Arab world in general and the land of Palestine in particular.

Footnote

Notes

1. Ghassan Kanafani has been credited for coining die label "Resistance Literature" in 1968. See "Resistance Literature in Occupied Palestine," Afro-Asian Writings 1:2-3 (1968), 65-79.

2. For a tracing of the importance of Jerusalem throughout history, see City of the Great King: Jerusalem from David to the Present, ed. Nitza Rosovsky (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996), especially the article "Palestinian Images of Jerusalem," by Muhammad Muslih, 178-201.

3. Naser el Din al- Asad, Al-Ittijahat al-adabiyyah al-Hadithahfi Filastin wa al-Urdun (Modern Literary Trends in Palestine and Jordan) (Arab League: Institute of Arab Studies, 1957).

4. Ibid., 128.

5. Quoted in ibid., 129. My translation.

6. Salma Khadra Jayyusi, ed. "Introduction," in Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 19.

7. Jayyusi, Anthology, 7-8.

8. Ibid., 318-31 9, trans. Salwa Jabsheh and Naomi Shihab Nye.

9. Ibid., 11.

10. Ahmad Abu-Matar, Al-Riwaya fi al-Adab al-Filastini, 1950-1975 (The Novel in Palestinian Literature, 1950-1975) (Beirut: Arabic Institution for Research and Publishing, 1980), 22.

11. Ibid., 28.

12. Khalil Ibrahim Baydas, Al-Warith: Riwayah Ijtimaiyah Gharamiyah (The Heir) (Jerusalem: The Syrian Dar al-Aytam Printing Press, 1920).

13. Jayyusi, Anthology, 14.

14. Ibid., 14-15.

15. Ibid., 15.

1 6. Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1 990), 50.

17. The rise of the Egyptian writer Najib Mahfouz must be acknowledged here for having had lasting influences on the art of Arabic fiction.

18. For Ghassan Kanafani, see, for example, Men in the Sun and Other Stories, trans. Hilary Kilpatrick (1 978; Washington, DC: Three Continents Press, 1 998) and All That 's Left to You, trans. May Jayyusi and Jeremy Reed ( 1 966; Austin: University of Texas Press, 1 990). For Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, see The Ship, trans. Roger Allen and Adnan Haydar (1 970; Washington DC: Three Continents Press, 1 987); In Search for Walid Masoud, trans. Roger Allen and Adnan Haydar (1978; Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000); and The Well: A Bethlehem Boyhood, trans. Issa J. Boullata (Fayetsville: University of Arkansas Press, 1995).

19. See Little Things (1954); The Long Shadow (1956); And Other Stories (1960); The Clock and Man (1963); and The Feast from the Western Window (1971).

20. Samira Azzam, Al-Zill al-Kabeir The Long Shadow) (1956; Beirut: Dar al-'Awda, 1982).

21. Emile Habiby, The Secret Life ofSaeed, the Ill-Fated Pessoptimist, trans. Salma Khadra Jayyusi and Trevor LeGassick (New York: Vantage Press, 1982).

22 . See Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, "Modem Arabic Literature and the West," Critical Perspectives on Modern Arabic Literature, ed. Issa J. Boullata (Washington, DC: Three Continents Press, 1980), 7-22.

23. Ibid., 7-10.

24. Ibid., 12-15.

25 . "Why Write?" From "What is Literature?" ( 1 949) by Jean-Paul Sartre, trans. Bernard Frechtmen in The Critical Tradition, Classical Texts and Contemporary Trends, ed. David H. Richter (New York: Bedford Books, 1989), 1177-1184.

26. Salma Khadra Jayyusi, Trends and Movements in Modern Arabic Poetry, vol. ? (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977), 532-533.

27. Jabra, "Modern Arabic Literature and the West," 18.

28. Jayyusi, Trends and Movements, 533.

29. Samih al-Qasim, quoted in A. M. Elmessiri, collector and trans., The Palestinian Wedding: A Bilingual Anthology of Contemporary Palestinian Resistance Poetry (Washington, DC: Three Continents Press, 1982).

30. Emile Nakhleh, "Wells of Bitterness: A Survey of Israeli-Arab Political Poetry," in Critical Perspectives on Modern Arabic Literature, ed. Issa J. Boullata (Washington, DC : Three Continents Press, 1980), 244-262.

31. Quoted in ibid., 255; originally from the collection A Lover from Palestine, 'Ashiq min Falastin (Nazareth: Al-Hakim Press, 1966).

32. Elia Zureik, The Palestinians in Israel: A Study in Internal Colonialism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), 166; and Fowzi El-Asmar, To Be an Arab in Israel (1975; Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1978), 149, originally written in Hebrew and published in Israel by Frances Pinter, 1975, and later translated by the author into Arabic.

33. See El-Asmar, To Be an Arab in Israel, 149.

34. Hanan Mikhail Ashrawi, "The Contemporary Palestinian Poetry of Occupation," Journal of Palestine Studies, 7 (1978), 77-101, at 78-79.

35. Zureik, Palestinians in Israel, 167.

36. Jiryis, The Arabs in Israel (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1 976), 38-40, trans, from the Arabic by Inea Bushnaq; see also John Cooley, Green March, Black September (London: Frank Cass, 1973), 51-52.

37 . Zureik, Palestinians in Israel, 1 7 1 - 1 72.

38. Quoted in Zureik, Palestinians in Israel, 172; originally from Ian Lustick, "Institutionalized segmentation: One factor in the control of Israeli Arabs," unpublished paper delivered at the Middle East Studies Association Meeting, Louisville, Kentucky (1975), 25.

39. Ashrawi, "Contemporary Palestinian Poetry of Occupation," 78.

40. Jabra, "Modern Arabic Literature and the West," 19.

41. ne Norton Anthology of World Literature, vol. 2 (New York: W W Norton, 2013), 1607-1609.

42. Ibid.

43. Fawaz Turki, The Disinherited: Journal of a Palestinian Exile (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972), 8-9.

44. Ibid., and Soul in Exile: Lives of a Palestinian Revolutionary (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1988).

45. Turki, The Disinherited, 15.

46. Quoted in Jayyusi, Anthology, 363-364.

47. David Robert Gilmore, Dispossessed: The Ordeal of the Palestinians (London: Sphere Books, 1982), 80.

48. Quoted in Gilmore, Dispossessed, 80, originally from Elmer Berger, Who Knows Better Must Say So: Letters of an American Jew, 2nd ed. (Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1970), 43.

49. Gilmore, Dispossessed, 80.

50. Barbara Harlow, Resistance Literature (New York: Methuen, 1987).

51. Ibid., 79-82.

52. Ibid., 79.

53. Ibid., 80.

54. Ibid., 86.

55. Fadwa Tuqan, A Mountainous Journey: An Autobiography, trans. Olive Kenny, Foreword Salma Khadra Jayyusi, Intro. Fedwa Malti-Douglass (1985; St. Paul, Minn.: Graywolf Press, 1990).

56. The term is Albert Hourani's, quoted in Rashid Khalidi, "The Palestinians and 1 948: The Underlying Causes of Failure," in The War for Palestine, Rewriting the History of 1948, ed. Eugene L. Rogan and Avi Shlaim (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 22.

57. Fawaz Turki, "Meaning in Palestinian History: Text and Context," Arab Studies Quarterly 3 (1981), 371-383, at 373.

58. Ibrahim Nasrallah, Prairies of Fever, trans. May Jayyusi and Jeremy Reed (Northampton, MA: Interlink, 1993).

59. Tuqan, A Mountainous Journey, 113.

60. Trans. May Jayyusi and Jeremy Reed (Northampton, MA: Interlink Books, 1993).

6 1 . Sahar Khalifeh, Mudakarat Imra 'Gair Waqiiyah, 2nd ed. (Beirut: Dar al-Adab, 1 992).

62. Ibid., 17.

63. Ibid., 17.

64. A number of Palestinian writers in Israel such as Michel Haddad, Jamal Qa'war, Anton Shammas, and Fahd Abu Khadra also write in Hebrew; but since they are Israeli-affiliated and have not participated in a resistance literature, they are beyond the consideration of this article. See Ashrawi, Literature of Palestine: Poetry and Fiction," PhD dissertation. University of Virginia, 1982.

65 . Edward Said, After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives. Photographs by Jean Mohr (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986), 7.

66. Ibid., 7.