Contorno da seção

  • Prof. Safa Jubran:

    The speaking silence: Starting from the novel My name is Adam, the first volume of the trilogy Children of the Ghetto, by the Lebanese writer Elias Khoury, this class will address some of the themes treated, such as the Nakba and Lydda's Ghetto, besides the embedded themes, by focusing on certain narrative techniques used by Khoury to achieve the points he wanted to discuss, such as identity, history, memory, the relationship of the novel to history, some questions cross them: how to restore in literature crimes whose victims have walled themselves in silence? How literature can be the only way to give meaning to the meaningless of life. I intend to read a page from the novel in Arabic, Portuguese and English to illustrate the idea of “silence” that speaks and faces history.


    Prof. Selma Sabbagh:

    Can we turn to fiction to establish a term that describes the full, multidimensional impact of the system of control of Palestinians by Israel? Palestinians are experiencing a kind of dystopic techno-necro-apartheid of unprecedented reach and brutality; mechanisms of control, legal and physical, tested out on a population for wider global application. Readers may turn to fiction to find out how it feels to experience Palestinian lives, but does it also provide narratives of resistance that are universally applicable?’ The blind Abbasid poet, Abu Al-Ala Al Ma’ari (973-1057) wrote, ‘Hold tight to what is most yourself/ Don’t squander it, don’t let your life/ Be governed by what disturbs you.’ This session will explore what can be learnt from Palestinian resistance, considering whether the lynchpins of narrative can been found in fiction. It explores whether Palestinians have been able to build a narrative, not based on what they are against, but also on what they are for.


    Elias Khoury: Commentaries



    Reading Assignment:

    Khoury Elias. My name is Adam (CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO: VOLUME I), Translated by Humphrey Davies.

    Khoury Elias. Meu nome é Adam (CRIANÇAS DO GUETO 1): VOLUME I), Translated from Arabic to Portuguese by Safa Jubran. 

    الياس خوري، اسمي آدم ، أولاد الغيتو (1)، دار الآداب

    Khoury, Elias. “Forward”. In: Bashir Bashir and Amos Goldberg (org.). The Holocaust and and the Nakba.

    Selma Dabbagh. ‘Out of It,’ novel, (Bloomsbury, 2011).

    Selma Dabbagh. ‘Jerusalem, Dispossessed,’ (DAWN, 2021).

    For other short pieces and stories, please see www.selmadabbagh.com