Overview

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.

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9783319914145

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Ahmad Qabaha is Assistant Professor in Postcolonial, Comparative and American Studies at An-Najah National University in Palestine and its current Director in Minor in American Studies Program. He has published various works in his fields of study, and he is currently working with Dr Rachel Fox on his second monograph Post-millennial Palestine: Memory, Narration, Resistance.

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