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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....