Narrating the Past and Reclaiming Memory in Palestinian Anglophone Literature: Haunting Trauma

This book explores the creative depiction of Palestinian traumas in Palestinian Anglophone novels, examining memory as a trope of resistance against erasure and forgetfulness in the works of Isabella Hammad, Susan Abulhawa, Hala Alyan, and Selma Dabbagh. Moving beyond North American and European models of trauma and remembrance, it extends the analysis of trauma tropes to literature from the Global South. In the context of a Palestinian archival history that has been systematically destroyed to obscure the brutal realities of settler colonialism, popular memory and testimonial forms—including literature—emerge as adversarial strategies that counter the politics of memoricide and historical erasure.