Imagining Palestine: Cultures of Exile and National Identity

Winner of the Counter Current Award at the 2023 Palestine Book Awards

All national identities are somewhat fluid, held together by collective beliefs and practices as much as official territory and borders. In the context of the Palestinians, whose national status in so many instances remains unresolved, the articulation and ’imagination’ of national identity is particularly urgent. This book explores the ways that Palestinian intellectuals, artists, activists and ordinary citizens ’imagine’ their homeland, examining the works of key Palestinian and other thinkers and writers such as Edward Said, Ghassan Kanafani, Naji Al Ali, Mahmoud Darwish, Mourid Barghouti, Radwa Ashour, Suheir Hammad, and Susan Abulhawa. Deploying decolonial and resistance concepts, such as Palestinian sumud, Tahrir Hamdi argues that the imaginative construction of Palestine is a key element in the Palestinians’ ongoing struggle. An interdisciplinary work drawing upon critical theory, postcolonial and decolonial studies and literary analysis, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Palestine and Middle East studies and Arabic literature.

Tahrir Hamdi is Professor of Decolonial Studies at Arab Open University, Jordan. She is on the editorial board of several prestigious journals and has published widely on resistance literature.