Carol Fadda-Conrey (2014) points out that Arab American literature emerged remarkably in the early years of the 21st century, accompanying various political events and turmoil in either the USA or the Arab world, particularly the Middle East. One of the key aspects of this ethnic literature is the manifestation of the Arab national identity and the call for unity and solidarity among kin Arab communities, whether locally or across borders. This paper, as such, by taking Diana Abu-Jaber’s novel Crescent (2003) as an example of the Arab American fiction produced in the contemporary era, examines the components of nationalism as expressed from afar – long-distance nationalism. This type of national propensity has received little attention in contemporary literary studies. In addition to using critical and analytical approaches to the novel, this paper basically relies on a socioconceptual framework based on the perspectives of prominent theorists and critics, such as Carol Fadda-Conrey, Nina Glick Shiller, Gabriella Elgenius, and Tololyan Khachig, to name a few.
This paper discusses the politics and multi-functionality of storytelling in Diana Abu-Jaber’s novel Crescent (2003). I argue that the strategic use of storytelling places Crescent as a complex hybrid text that projects the nature, and development, of Arab American literature in the contemporary era. In addition to having the practice of storytelling as an apparatus to project identity in Crescent, Abu-Jaber re-appropriates its empowered status in Arab culture as well as politicizes its image in the mind of her readers. Besides employing critical and analytical approaches to the novel, this paper relies on arguments and perspectives of prominent postcolonial and literary critics and theorists such as Edward Said, Suzanne Keen, Walter Benjamin, and Samaya Sami Sabry, to name a few.
It is worth pointing out that Laila Halaby, besides her two novels that have been discussed in this interview, has other published works and forthcoming literary projects. My Name on His Tongue (2012), for instance, is a collection of poems that shed light on women who grew up and lived in the United States as Arabs and Americans. The literary output in the making is Woman, Be My Country, a novel in which three unlikely characters -Filasteen Salama, Shah Reza D, and William Wallace -interact over coffee as a result of war, and their names, which represent a heavy burden to carry, have had a profound effect on their choices. Watching the Girl You Love Walk Away with Charlie Manson demonstrates a year of grief in 12 stories that take place in the year after Trump's election. Also, The Weight of Ghosts is a memoir under consideration for publication.Ishak Berrebbah (IB): You have contributed remarkably to the contemporary Arab American literary canon, given that your fiction has been acknowledged positively by many literary critics such as Steven Salaita (2011) and Amal Talaat Abdelrazak (2008). Is there a link between your fiction and your life in any aspect? In other words, do your life experiences have an impact on the shaping of your fiction?Laila Halaby (LH): I think just my existence shaped it, the fact that I was always between, so I think that was what drove me to fiction in the first place, the fact that I never really felt this Arab Americanness has its own culture. I had that American mom and a Jordanian father and it was not a cohesive blending. I think to make sense of that I wrote stories and I think that's where it came from. I think the various stories that developed often come from the things that I see and I want to work through, and I want to understand better. You know it is not so much that I am "Neither here nor there": A Conversation with Laila Halaby Commonwealth Essays and Studies, 43.2 | 2021 IB: I mean throughout the novel there are some male characters who perpetuate patriarchy such as Hala's father, Khadija's father, and also Soraya's father to some extent. Talking about Khadija's father in particular, he shows a strong male dominance within the family "Neither here nor there": A Conversation with Laila Halaby Commonwealth Essays and Studies, 43.2 | 2021
Arab American fiction has received great attention in the post-9/11 period. This ethnic literature has been put under a critical lens due to the aspects that shape it and the issues discussed in it. One of the main objectives of Arab American fiction is to bridge cultural differences and appeal to its readers, both Arabs and non-Arabs. This particular objective is achieved by the authors’ willingness to trigger empathetic engagement with their characters. As such, this paper looks at how Laila Halaby’s West of the Jordan (2003) functions in accordance with the poetics of empathy. In other words, the aim of this paper is to show how fiction appeals to its readers through empathy and how empathetic engagement sustains the characters-readers connection, taking West of the Jordan as a literary example. This paper suggests that empathy in fiction is multi-layered and serves different purposes. The arguments are based on a conceptual framework supported by scholarly perspectives of prominent critics and theorists such as Chielozona Eze, Heather Hoyt, and Suzanne Keen, to name just a few.
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