Seeking Palestine: New Palestinian Writing on Exile and Home
Whereas writing on Palestine is often encumbered by the baggage of ideology, and writings from within Palestine are unfortunately few, this collection of essays frames itself as writing in search of Palestine, seeking less to represent a place than to capture its imaginations. Contributors include intellectuals, authors, and professionals, many of whom echo and acknowledge Edward Said’s famous reflections on exile. Environmental scholar and translator Sharif Elmusa combines poetry and prose to invoke a long-standing Arabic tradition, but he does so in English, complicating the effort. Lila Abu-Lughod shares somber recollections on the legacy of her father, Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, a highly regarded statesman and political scientist. Other essays embrace the absurdity of the situation, including a relatively lighthearted piece by poet and memoirist Mourid Barghouti about an amusing taxi-ride-turned-crane-rescue. Throughout, the authors work to untether the hyphenated “nation-state,” embracing instead the future of a people. Since, as poet and physician Fady Joudah reflects, “what has not yet arrived has not yet been lost.” --Diego Báez