The Institute for Palestine Studies has released "The Palestinian Novel: From 1948 to the Present," a book by Bashir Abu-Manneh, translated by Mos'ab Hayatli.
The book explores the effects of the Palestinian Catastrophe (Al-Nakba), the homelessness and diaspora that followed it in the Palestinian novel, and how Palestinian novelists responded to this tragic crisis.
This study was first issued in English in 2016 and is the first-of-its-kind in this language. It is aimed at mapping the development of the Palestinian novel in the asylum and under the occupation from 1948 to the signing of the Oslo Accords.
Studying the extent of the Palestinian revolution and its roots, Bashir Abu-Manneh determines the links between the aesthetics and politics in the Palestinian novel, gathering the historical analyses and the textual readings of prominent Palestinian novelists such as Jabra Ibrahim, Ghassan Kanafani, Emile Habibi, and Sahar Khalifeh to unveil a Palestinian novel that promotes human vision and self-sacrifice as a route towards collective salvation, common interest, and self-accomplishment.
According to the writer, the resistance, hope, and political opportunities were followed by individual and collective fragmentation.
The new book also explores Jean Genet and Elias Khoury and their literary works dedicated to the Palestinian revolution, and shed light on the causes of struggle, fight, and the right to self-determination.
Bashir Abu- Manneh is a professor of postcolonial literature and director of the Center for Postcolonial Studies at the University of Kent, UK.