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Forty per cent of the 89.3 million displaced people in the world are Arabs, displaced inside their own countries and abroad. This book examines Arabic literature produced by and about migrants, refugees and other displaced people with a particular focus on the period from the First Gulf War (1990) to the present day. It is based on various research strategies, including comparative, historical, theoretical and interdisciplinary approaches in order to identify the specifics of the interconnected poetics, genres (or genre-defying features) and themes of the analyzed works, as well as the dominant trends across these literary developments. Special attention is paid to: The relationship between literature produced in countries of origin and countries of asylum The representation of "states of exception", for example, refugees in the context of street/camp life The contribution of migration literature to human rights discourses and their contestation Mapping geographies of migration literature: Palestinian, Lebanese, Iraqi, Syrian, etc. Linguistic choice and aesthetic challenges in poetry, prose and drama Formal experimentation and transformations/crossings of genres (novel and life writing; poetry; drama and performative arts) The quest for identity and generational conflict in narratives (novels, short stories, memoirs, etc.) Comparative approaches within Arabic literary production and/ or with other migrant writings Debates regarding the term "Refugee literature" in the Arab field, where this definition is discussed, criticized. How writers articulate the divergences and convergences between the experiences of women and men in exile.
List of contents
Notes on Contributors Note on TransliterationIntroduction
Annamaria Bianco, Baian Rayhanova and Simone SibilioPart One Transcultural Aesthetics and Refugee Issues: Challenging Eurocentric Perspectives
1 Reframing the Debate on 'Arab Refugee Literature': The Syrian Response to 'Western' Labelling
Simone Sibilio2 A Matter of Hierarchies and Classificatory Schemes: ?Ali Badr and 'Arab Refugee Literature'
Antonio Pacifico3 Intermedial Aesthetics and Decolonial Knowledge Production in ?asan Balasim's Work
Rita Sakr4 'Tell Us Exactly What Happened': Subverting the Asylum Story in ?amu?il Sham?un's
?Iraqi fi Baris Federico PozzoliPart Two Forced Displacement, Legacies of War and Their Gendered Dimensions
5 Time and Space in Miral al-?a?awi's Novel
Bruklin hayts Baian Rayhanova6 The Text within the Text in Maha ?asan's and Dima Wannus's Novels
Lovisa Berg7 Syrian Women Speak: Refugee Witnesses in Samar Yazbik's Work
Giulia Spadoni8 A Feminine Poetics of Liminality in Iman ?umaydan's Novels
Darejan GardavadzePart Three Shifting Subjectivities in Diaspora and Refugee Camps
9 The Palestinian Refugee Camp as a Marginal Space:
Mukhmal by ?uzama ?abayib
Annamaria Bianco10 Velvet-Wrapped Refugee Life in ?uzama ?abayib's Novels
Dorit Gottesfeld11
Shatila Stories: The 'Nomadic Thought' within the Camp
Paola Viviani12 Manifold Representations of
Ghurba in Julan ?aji's Poetry: Translation at the Core of the Creative Process
Patrizia ZanelliPart Four Language, Myth and Identity through the Prism of Difference
13 Christian Vernacular in
Ya Maryam by Sinan An?un
Tetz Rooke14 An Old Wise Woman Fighting War and Destruction in Isma?il Fahd Isma?il's
al-Sabiliyyat Stephan Guth15 Nuri al-Jarra?'s Poetry: A Saidian Humanistic Reading
Francesca Maria Corrao16
IMedea by Sulayman al-Bassam: From Ancient Myth to Modern Migration
Monica Ruocco17 Refuge Theatre as Crime Fiction in Wa?il Qaddur's Plays
Daniela PotenzaIndex
About the author
Simone Sibilio, Member of the EURAMAL Executive Board and the Editorial Board of the EURAMAL Conference Proceedings; Member of the Editorial Board of Quaderni di Studi arabi; Member of CEM (Center for Contemporary Middle East of Ca’ Foscari University); Author of Poesia araba moderna e contemporanea (Modern and Contemporary Arabic Poetry, 2022).Annamaria Bianco, Member of the Editorial Board of the EURAMAL Conference Proceedings; Member of the Editorial Board of the Junior Scholar’s Journal Maydan; Former Editorial Assistant at Banipal (Magazine of Modern Arabic Literature in English Translation); Author of Adab al-malja’: Representing Refuge in the Arabic Novel of the 21st Century (PhD Thesis).Baian Rayhanova, President of the European Association for Modern Arabic Literature (EURAMAL), Member of the Editorial Board of the Proceedings of the EURAMAL Conference, Editor-in-chief of Journal of Arabic and World Literature: Comparative and Multidisciplinary Perspectives at Andromeda Publishing and Academic Services, Author of Modern Arabic Prose: from Neoclassical to Postmodern (2018).
