Description
By (author) Allan, Diana – Sayigh, Rosemary; Edited by Allan Diana; Afterword by Sayigh Rosemary Short description/annotation
First-generation Palestinian refugees recall life before and after the Nakba
Description
***Winner of an English PEN Award 2021***
During the 1948 war more than 750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were violently expelled from their homes by Zionist militias. The legacy of the Nakba – which translates to ‘disaster’ or ‘catastrophe’ – lays bare the violence of the ongoing Palestinian plight.
Voices of the Nakba collects the stories of first-generation Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, documenting a watershed moment in the history of the modern Middle East through the voices of the people who lived through it.
The interviews, with commentary from leading scholars of Palestine and the Middle East, offer a vivid journey into the history, politics and culture of Palestine, defining Palestinian popular memory on its own terms in all its plurality and complexity.
Table of contents
List of Figures Map of PalestineAcknowledgementsNote on Translation and Transliteration Foreword by Mahmoud Zeidan Introduction: Past Continuous by Diana Allan PART I: Life in Pre-1948 Palestine1. Village Life in Palestine – Rochelle Davis2. Of Forests and Trees: City Life in 1930s Palestine – Sherene Seikaly3. The Margin and the Centre in Narrating Pre-1948 Palestine – Amirah Silmi4. Mandated Memory: The Schooling of Palestine in Nicola Ziadeh’s and Anis Sayigh’s Pre-1948 Recollections – Dyala HamzahPART II: The British Mandate and Palestinian and Arab Resistance5. Motivations and Tensions of Palestinian Police Service under British Rule – Alex Winder6. Storying the Great Arab Revolt: Narratives of Resistance During 1936–39 – Jacob Norris7. Songs of Resistance – Ted SwedenburgPART III: War and Ethnic Cleansing8. The Roots of the Nakba – Salman Abu Sitta9. Four Villages, Four Stories: Ethnic Cleansing Massacres in al-Jalil – Saleh Abdel Jawad10. Remembering the Fight – Laila ParsonsPART IV: Flight and Exile11. The Dispossession of Lydda – Lena Jayyusi12. Scars of the Mind: Trauma, Gender and Counter-Memories of the Nakba – Ruba Salih13. The Politics of Listening – Cynthia KreichatiAfterword: Oral History in Palestinian Studies by Rosemary Sayigh Contributors and Translators Glossary Notes Index
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”Through the pages of this book the reader can hear, feel, experience and understand more about the Nakba than by reading any other book on the subject”
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”Moving and thoughtful […] With their silences, ellipses and jags of storytelling, the refugee voices invite us to imagine the lives torn asunder by the violence of the Nakba”
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‘Brings to life the experiences of ordinary Palestinians in pre-1948 Palestine and the traumatic experience of war and exile, written by leading scholars in the field. Of special value in this volume is the section on control and resistance during the Mandate dealing with policing, and narratives of rebellion’
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”A truly impressive collection […] An opportunity to reconsider whether what the Palestinians faced was victimhood rather than an act of colonialism”
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”Imaginatively curated and framed […] A brilliant contribution to the current moment as the world finally understands the true nature of the Palestinian struggle”
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”The stories gathered here are the fruit of perseverant gathering. Their careful, deliberate, loving translation bear the sense and sensualities of Palestinian existence. ”Voices of the Nakba” s
