Table Of ContentNOSTALGIA IN ANGLOPHONE
ARAB LITERATURE
ii
NOSTALGIA IN ANGLOPHONE
ARAB LITERATURE
Nationalism, Identity and Diaspora
Tasnim Qutait
I.B. TAURIS
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CONTENTS
Preface vi
Note on transliteration ix
INTRODUCTION 1
Chapter 1
THE CHAOS OF LOST EMPIRES: RABIH ALAMEDDINE, SABIHA
KHEMIR AND YASMIN ZAHRAN 33
Chapter 2
REWRITING COLONIAL ENCOUNTERS: AHDAF SOUEIF,
FADIA FAQIR AND JAMAL MAHJOUB 61
Chapter 3
NATIONAL HISTORIES AND FAMILY NARRATIVES: HISHAM MATAR,
LEILA ABOULELA AND RANDA JARRAR 89
Chapter 4
REIMAGINING BELONGING IN THE DIASPORA: ROBIN YASSIN-
KASSAB, SELMA DABBAGH AND RAWI HAGE 123
CONCLUSION 153
Notes 163
Work cited 169
Index 184
PREFACE
In the spring of 2012, I was sent a copy of a family photograph taken in Tripoli,
Libya, in 1955, during a fund-raising meeting attended by Ahmed Ben Bella
and other representatives of the Algerian independence movement.1 Libya had
become a sovereign country just four years earlier in 1951; for Algeria the battle
for independence would last until 1962. In the photograph, the Algerian flag and
the Libyan flag hang from the windows behind the gathering. Ahmed Ben Bella
sits in the middle of the row; the man in the foreground is my grandfather.
To paraphrase W.J.T. Mitchell, looking at this photograph I ask what it demands of
me, and what I want from it (xv). Is the nostalgic mood it evokes for me simply a
function of the image? Monochromatic and sepia images have been described as
possessing an ‘aesthetic of the authentic figured around a basic quality of pastness’
(Grainge, ‘TIME’s past’ 384). This quality of authenticity may be part of what
draws me to this image, along with the fact that the photograph brings together a
family member and an iconic figure of anti-colonial struggle, making the historical
personal.
Aside from this personal investment however, I am aware of the nostalgic
narrative around Ahmed Ben Bella, as a hero of the Algerian independence struggle
and elected president who was deposed by a military coup and lived for decades
under house arrest. Ben Bella’s fate was shared by Mohammad Naguib in Egypt,
Preface vii
Shukri al-Quwatli in Syria and Abdulkarim Qasim in Iraq: all were overthrown in
the early years of independence, and today are often mythologized as rulers who
could have created the basis for modern and prosperous countries. This narrative
is part of a pervasive nostalgia for an era when independence had just been
realized, or was on the verge of being realized, a nostalgia which is heightened
by the contrast between then and now. As Svetlana Boym puts it, nostalgia works
through the ‘superimposition of two images – of home and abroad, past and
present, dream and everyday life’, a superimposition Boym describes through the
‘cinematic image’ of a ‘double exposure’ (xii–xiv). The nostalgia this photograph
evokes for me works through such a ‘double exposure’, where the present situation
in both Algeria and Libya (a military regime after years of civil war in Algeria, an
ongoing civil war in Libya) is contrasted against the ambitions and dreams of the
independence generation.
When I began writing this book, the tricolour flag hanging in the window in the
photograph was once again visible everywhere on the streets of Libya, though it
had been banned since 1977, when the Gaddafi regime instituted the green flag as
a symbol of Gaddafi’s Green Book. The reappearance of the flag of independence
during the 2011 uprisings, which later came to be called the ‘Arab Spring’, was one
instance of what seemed to be a new beginning for a region often described as
having failed to join the modern world. In an article published in February 2011,
David Hirst expressed just this, stating: ‘[i]n rallying at last to this now universal
but essentially Western value called democracy, they [Arabs] are in effect rejoining
the world, catching up with history that has left them behind’ (Hirst). The uprisings
were even described as ‘amounting to a second round of decolonisation’ capturing
a cyclicality that paradoxically combines revolution and stagnation (Mishra).
The idea of an Arab world left behind by history would, it seemed, be forever
altered following the 2011 uprisings. However, in the tumultuous years since, the
term ‘Arab Spring’ has changed, negating the idea of an epistemic shift which it is
suggested was always illusory, naïve or facile. The uprisings that erupted after over
thirty years of authoritarianism revealed fractured societies, ultimately leading to
internecine strife and new heights of repression. Looking back on photographs of
the initial months of the uprisings now leads to a telescoped version of looking
at photographs of the independence generation: the future imagined in both
cases clashes with the reality known in the present. Susan Sontag writes that ‘the
photograph eclipses other forms of understanding, of remembering’ (89). She
argues that photographs ‘haunt’ us but are constrained, in contrast to ‘narratives
[which] can make us understand’ (89). The photograph that was the starting point
for this project led me to think about nostalgic narratives and how narratives can
make us understand.
There are many people to thank for their support during the time it took to
complete this book. I am greatly indebted to colleagues at the English department
at Uppsala University. My thanks go in particular to Ashleigh Harris, Robert
Appelbaum, Stuart Robertson and Stephen Donovan, whose invaluable advice
and feedback shaped the development of this book. I am also very grateful to
Gail Ramsay, Roger Allen, Lindsey Moore and Wen-chin Ouyang for sharing
viii Preface
their critical insights at key stages of this project. Warm thanks are due to Sindija
Franzetti, Maria Zirra, Sanja Nivesjö, July Blalack, Krista Riley, Fatima Ahdash
and Khadeja Ramali, who have been a source of inspiration and encouragement.
Last but foremost, I thank my family for their patience and support.
Chapters 2 and 3 include revised versions of work which appears in the
article ‘“Like His Father Before Him”: Patrilineality and Nationalism in the
work of Hisham Matar, Jamal Mahjoub and Robin Yassin-Kassab’ in Postcolonial
Interventions. Chapter 4 includes sections which appear in an earlier version as
‘Qabbani versus Qur’an: Arabism and the Umma in Robin Yassin-Kassab’s The
Road from Damascus’ in Open Cultural Studies.
TRANSLITERATION
The names of authors, characters and place names are rendered in Anglicized
forms dictated by common usage, omitting diacritical marks. The names of
authors whose works have been translated are rendered according to the form in
which they appear in the English-language translation. Where quotations include
transliterations, these are not altered.
