Representations of the Self and the Other in Refugee Literature. My Novel: Um Saad and Return to Haifa by Ghassan Kanafani – Two Examples

Abstract

Through literature, refugees expressed the contrasting human relationships between the self and the other and considered it a translation of the narrative imagination as opposed to reality. It became a sign expressing human interaction with others through expressive images that drew contrasting boundaries between the self and the other. Arab literary consciousness was consistent with its foreign counterpart, especially with regard to iconology and the ensuing literary war that aimed to liberate itself from Western hegemony in order to correct stereotypes and break the assumption of European centrality.

 The refugee writer practised cultural resistance by exposing the coloniser or the institution that opposed his freedom and suppressed his voice in the name of religion, gender or race, in an attempt to understand and get closer to him and build bridges of acquaintance. Here is Ghassan Kanafani, venturing into the depths of the Israel occupation in Palestine war, marked by displacement and genocide, gathering some of the images smuggled from his imagination, heavy with sorrow and calamity, in the guise of novels that resemble autobiographical narratives. This prompted us to question the representations of the other (the Israel occupation) as seen and perceived in this implicit visual discourse in his novels Um Saad and Return to Haifa.