To write is to resist: Sketching the literary Map of Palestine

Abstract

The strong determination to stay on the land clearly marks Palestinianness in their history, nationality and cultural productions which act as a key to the analysis and understanding of everyday Palestinian struggle for life and existence. Struggling for and clinging to the land is a part of collective Palestinian national consciousness. Sumud i.e. Resistance or steadfastness has become a national symbol for Palestinian way of self-defense which carries their unique way of their existence through expressions. Demographic struggle became the method of declaration of their philosophy of everyday life as „to exist is to resist‟ culturally, literally and artistically. Palestinian resistance has taken varied shapes, through history over the seventy years‟ against the Wall, land confiscation, house demolitions and settlements. Literary figures in Palestine have immensely contributed to shape the national consciousness and to raise the people both politically and aesthetically. An understanding of the literary map of Palestine would help in foregrounding the modes of resistance operate in the Palestinian land to re make meaning of their existence and to relocate them sociologically, culturally and spatially.