The Three Enigmas of Palestian Literature

Abstract

As an introduction to the Journal’s literary feature, this contribution aims to shed light on recent scholarship on Palestinian literature with a view to integrating discussions of literature more concretely within the broader field of Palestine studies. The contribution structures the discussion of the articles by Amal Eqeiq and Nora Parr around three enigmas that preoccupy scholars of Palestinian literature: writing a national literature without a nation-state, writing silence and nonlinearity, and writing fragmentation and wholeness. It highlights that challenges for scholarship on Palestinian literature revolve around rethinking conventional categorizations, canonizations, and periodizations to better understand how a national literature emerged in a context of exile, fragmentation, and statelessness, and how processes of cultural production operate in extranational conditions.