Literature of the Lebanese Diaspora

Jumana Bayeh is an Early Career Fellow in the Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations at Macquarie University, Australia. She was most recently a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh's Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and has held fellowships at the University of Copenhagen and the Lebanese American University in Beirut.

"An excellent book - it balances a sophisticated theoretical acumen with an expansive investigation of Lebanese cultural history and an astute critical approach to individual texts. Analyzing the question of Diaspora itself, the book is convincingly structured around three significant topoi in Lebanese literature : the civil war and the city, the issue of home, and the question of the nation state. This focused reading of Lebanese Diaspora literature offers a significant and original contribution to the field." - Professor Bill Ashcroft, Professor and ARC Fellow, School of the Arts and Media, University of New South Wales, Australia. "A pleasure to read. This book shows that, on the one hand, it is impossible to understand contemporary Lebanese literature without fully engaging with the field of Diaspora studies while, on the other hand, demonstrating that in some meaningful sense Diaspora studies itself is incomplete as field without a full consideration of Lebanese literature. Bayeh here provides a compelling and sensitive reading of literary texts with exemplary attention to the formal and symbolic specificities of each text, while also providing a forceful and intelligent intervention into the theories that motivate the readings. It is a strong, gracefully written and richly suggestive work." Professor Saree Makdisi, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, UCLA; "An arsenal of historical, political, sociological, and theological sources, in addition to literary criticism ... informs Bayeh's close and incisive readings." - Professor Syrine Hout, AUB; "... postwar Lebanese literature is from now on placed and framed at the heart of the political debate on nomadic communities. Bayeh speaks eloquently for the central role that literature may play in challenging normative constructions of the "home" and of the Lebanese diasporas." - Professor Martine Antle, University of Sydney; "... unquestionably, a remarkably written and incisively-argued study which is bound to be of value or interest not only to scholars of Arab literature, but also to all those interested in diaspora studies and world literature more generally." - Professor Sahar Amer, University of Sydney

• Part I: War and the City1. The Urban Space: Beirut at War 302. The Destruction of West Beirut in Tony Hanania’s Unreal City 413. Undermining the Christian City in Rawi Hage’s De Niro’s Game 66Part II: Home, Mobility, Immobility4. Domicile and Diaspora: Women Write the Home 935. Stasis and Domesticity in Nada Awar Jarrar’s Somewhere, Home 1036. Home and Movement in Alia Yunis’ The Night Counter 132Part III: Contesting the Nation-State 7. Nation, State and Diaspora 1618. One Land or Two? Israel and Palestine in Amin Maalouf’s Ports of Call173Conclusion: Place and Diaspora Literature196 Notes203Bibliography225