Full Description
This book examines the distinction between literary expatriation and exile through a 'contrapuntal reading' of modern Palestinian and American writing. It argues that exile, in the Palestinian case especially, is a political catastrophe; it is banishment by a colonial power. It suggests that, unlike expatriation (a choice of a foreign land over one's own), exile is a political rather than an artistic concept and is forced rather than voluntary — while exile can be emancipatory, it is always an unwelcome loss. In addition to its historical dimension, exile also entails a different perception of return to expatriation. This book frames expatriates as quintessentially American, particularly intellectuals and artists seeking a space of creativity and social dissidence in the experience of living away from home. At the heart of both literary discourses, however, is a preoccupation with home, belonging, identity, language, mobility and homecoming.
Contents
1. Introduction.- 2. Voluntary/Involuntary Departures: The Complications of Exile and Belonging in Malcolm Cowley and Fawaz Turki.- 3. Centrifugal/Centripetal Movements: Placelessness and the Subversive Tactics of Mobility in Ernest Hemingway and Jabra Ibrahim Jabra.- 4. Voyage In/Voyage Out: The Place of Origin and Identity (Re-) Construction in Gertrude Stein and Edward Said.- 5. Possible/Impossible Returns: The Questions of Roots and Routes in Thomas Wolfe and Mourid Barghouti.- 6. Conclusion.
