Omar Khalifah – författare

For Palestinians, 1948 was the year of the catastrophe—the Nakba. Recently, scholars have referred to the moral and political imperative for Palestinians to remember the Nakba. However, this book argues that, in this case, remembering is fraught with distinctive and enduring problems. These challenges arise from two main particularities of the Nakba. First, the author identifies the historical and moral paradox of the Nakba occurring in the post-Holocaust era. Second, he highlights the Nakba’s unusual temporality as an ongoing and unfinished condition, rather than a closed historical event. To explore these tensions, the book focuses on the field of memory studies and on Palestinian literature, two areas where the Nakba is most often remembered and commemorated. The author presents the shortcomings of an uncritical embrace of memory studies for commemorating the Nakba, particularly noting the unparalleled centrality of the Holocaust in this field. Within the literary space, he challenges the unsubstantiated generalizations about the relationship between Palestinian literature and the Nakba. The author argues that it is only by first engaging with the distinctive challenges of remembering the Nakba that a more truthful account of the Palestinian narrative can be found.

The late President of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-1970), has been represented in many major works of Egyptian literature and film, and continues to have a presence in everyday life and discourse in the country. Omar Khalifah’s analysis of these representations focuses on how the historical character of Nasser has emerged in the Egyptian imaginary. He explores the recurrent images of Nasser in literature and film and shows how Nasser constitutes a perfect site for plural interpretations. He argues that Nasser has become a rhetorical device, a figure of speech, a trope that connotes specific images constantly invoked whenever he is mentioned. His study makes a case for literature and art to be seen as alternative archives that question, erase, distort and add to the official history of Nasser.

Examines representations of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egyptian novels, short stories, autobiographies and filmsThe late President of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-1970), has been represented in many major works of Egyptian literature and film, and continues to have a presence in everyday life and discourse in the country. Omar Khalifah's analysis of these representations focuses on how the historical character of Nasser has emerged in the Egyptian imaginary. He explores the recurrent images of Nasser in literature and film and shows how Nasser constitutes a perfect site for plural interpretations. He argues that Nasser has become a rhetorical device, a figure of speech, a trope that connotes specific images constantly invoked whenever he is mentioned. His study makes a case for literature and art to be seen as alternative archives that question, erase, distort and add to the official history of Nasser.Key FeaturesContributes to the ongoing debate on Nasser and his relevance to modern EgyptiansTraces, contextualizes, and analyses the making of Nasser's image(s) in creative productions including novels, short stories, autobiographies and filmShows how Nasser functions for many Egyptians as a site of memory at times disconnected from the real historical figure he once was

A sardonic, thrilling fable about collective memory and the many ways it can be saved or subverted.Four young, Palestinian journalists at a Jordanian newspaper are tasked, on account of their heritage, with profiling one of the last living witnesses of the Nakba, the violent expulsion of native Palestinians by the nascent state of Israel in 1948. Confident that the old man will be all too happy to go on record, the reporters are nonplussed when they are repeatedly, and obscenely, rebuffed. This living witness to history, this secular saint, has no desire to be interviewed, no desire for his memories to be preserved, no desire to serve as an inspiration for the youth of tomorrow. What he wants is to be left alone.As threats from the team's editor-in-chief put more and more pressure on the journalists, they must decide just how far they're willing to go to get the old man on the record. After all, what possible weight can one stubborn demand for privacy have when balanced against the imperative to bear witness?Omar Khalifah's debut novel Sand-Catcher is at once a polyphonic satire and a tightly plotted tale of suspense. Walking the line between gallows humor, rage, and depthless heartbreak, it is a unique reflection of contemporary Palestinian identity in all its facets.

A sardonic, thrilling fable about collective memory and the many ways it can be saved or subverted.Four young, Palestinian journalists at a Jordanian newspaper are tasked, on account of their heritage, with profiling one of the last living witnesses of the Nakba, the violent expulsion of native Palestinians by the nascent state of Israel in 1948. Confident that the old man will be all too happy to go on record, the reporters are nonplussed when they are repeatedly, and obscenely, rebuffed. This living witness to history, this secular saint, has no desire to be interviewed, no desire for his memories to be preserved, no desire to serve as an inspiration for the youth of tomorrow. What he wants is to be left alone.As threats from the team''s editor-in-chief put more and more pressure on the journalists, they must decide just how far they''re willing to go to get the old man on the record. After all, what possible weight can one stubborn demand for privacy have when balanced against the imperative to bear witness?Omar Khalifah''s debut novel Sand-Catcher is at once a polyphonic satire and a tightly plotted tale of suspense. Walking the line between gallows humor, rage, and depthless heartbreak, it is a unique reflection of contemporary Palestinian identity in all its facets.

In this sumptuous, expansive new collection -- featuring new translations, for the first time, into English of significant poems from the 1960s to 1980s – Mahmoud Darwish's full scope as a poet, Palestinian, political asylee, and renderer of worlds is finally on full display.Darwish was a master of Arab poetics and modernist methods, and in combining these influences, he created poetry of intense beauty and resonant music and is forever read and treasured around the Middle East as a source of comfort and pride.Never before has literature related to Palestine been so in demand, as showcased by the commercial success of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad and Forest of Noise by Mosab Abu Toha. Readers are clearly seeking nonfiction and fiction alike to better understand the history of the region and its people.