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Palestinian writing imagines the nation, not as a nation-in-waiting but as a living, changing structure that joins people, place, and time into a distinct set of formations.
Novel Palestine examines these imaginative structures so that we might move beyond the idea of an incomplete or fragmented reality and speak frankly about the nation that exists and the freedom it seeks. Engaging the writings of Ibrahim Nasrallah, Nora E. H. Parr traces a vocabulary through which Palestine can be discussed as a changing and flexible national network linking people across and within space, time, and community. Through an exploration of the Palestinian literary scene subsequent to its canonical writers, Parr makes the life and work of Nasrallah available to an English-language audience for the first time, offering an intervention in geography while bringing literary theory into conversation with politics and history.
Nora E. H. Parr is a Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham and at the Center for Lebanese Studies. She coedits Middle Eastern Literatures.
"Ibrahim Nasrallah has been a stellar producer of literature, particularly in relation to Palestine. Nora Parr, through this sophisticated and engaging study, shows the multifaceted nature of his literary project and his commitment to the literary construction of Palestinian nationhood. Parr's study is unparalleled in its systematic and deeply informed treatment of Nasrallah's fictional world. It should serve as an excellent guide to anyone interested in Arabic literature and Palestinian studies more specifically. This book is not only an insightful study of Nasrallah's literary output, but it also opens a vista on the enduring genius of the Palestinian novel and Nasrallah's place in its luminous journey."—Atef Alshaer, author of Poetry and Politics in the Modern Arab World
"A compelling, sophisticated, and long overdue analysis of the works of the prolific but hitherto neglected Palestinian author Ibrahim Nasrallah. An outstanding achievement. Parr's exploration of Nasrallah's works offers the opportunity to reconsider and reinterpret many of the most dominant discourses and motifs in Palestinian culture."—Joseph R. Farag, Assistant Professor of Modern Arab Studies, University of Minnesota
"Novel Palestine is a timely and significant intervention in our understanding of the Palestinian novel and identity. In her interrogation of the concept of the 'nation through the works of Ibrahim Nasrallah,' Parr offers critical reflections on Nasrallah and his innovative contributions to the Palestinian novel and on the evolving Palestinian community and belonging at the turn of the twenty-first century. It is a must read for everyone interested in Palestine, identity, and literature."—Wen-chin Ouyang, author of Politics of Nostalgia in the Arabic Novel
"Novel Palestine stakes a claim about the relation between Palestinian literary writing and the ways in which this writing figures the experience of being Palestinian in excess of the terms of the settler state and its linear, developmental, narrative, and critical forms. Parr shows that literature enables a thinking of Palestinian life beyond these terms, and in this she powerfully suggests the relevancy of language and aesthetic form in the ongoing resistance to settler colonization, the regime of the modern carceral state, and the modes of thought and life these sustain."—Jeffrey Sacks, Associate Professor and Chair of Comparative Literature/Arabic, University of California, Riverside
"In her pioneering study of the curiously neglected Ibrahim Nasrallah, Parr shows how his epic Palestine Project expands the notion of a literary series to re-image not only Palestine, but the notion of the nation itself. A welcome demonstration of the power of writing to redefine the political domain."—Lyndsey Stonebridge, author of We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt's Lessons in Love and Disobedience
"Parr's Novel Palestine is a welcome critical intervention and vitally important addition to Palestinian literary studies in its focus on the one of the foremost writers of the Palestinian epic, Ibrahim Nasrallah. It can be situated within a tradition of literary criticism charted by the leading efforts of authors such as Mary Layoun and Barbara Harlow."—Najat Rahman, author of In the Wake of the Poetic: Palestinian Artists after Darwish
232 pp.6 x 9
9780520394650$34.95|£30.00Paper
Oct 2023