Memory in Exilic Literature: A Cultural Study of Diana Abu-Jaber's Crescent (2003) Alia Mamdouh's al-Mahbubat (The Loved Ones) (2003) and Nathalie Abi-Ezzi's A Girl Made of Dust (2008)

Abstract

The dissertation is entitled: Memory in Exilic Literature: A Cultural Study of Diana Abu-Jaber's Crescent (2003), Alia Mamdouh's al-Mahbubat (The Loved Ones) (2003) and Nathalie Abi-Ezzi's A Girl Made of Dust (2008). The dissertation highlights the crucial role of memory in exilic literature. Memory is proved to build up layers of communication between past, present, and future in a collective framework where personal and collective memories merge together to depict the trauma of exile. The dissertation reveals the interconnectedness between memory, culture, and narrative to be of the utmost importance in terms of the quest of identity in exile. Memory in exile forms the scaffold that supports one's culture, identity, and sense of home, fiercely defending them against collapse on a strange land. Significantly, the work shows how memory maintains identity in exile through encoding itself within literary, cultural, physical, and psychological forms of expression. It is even embodied in sensual stimulants that address the senses. Memory thus is a dynamic and evolving process as it works through the re-construction of the past in a given cultural context of the present. In the same line of thought, this work also shows how exilic writing forms a potent site for the construction of memory through providing a rich arena for its mechanisms and relations. This means that the notion of memory works the best in a literary exilic narrative; a narrative that shapes and, at the same time, is shaped by memory.

Key words: Memory, exile, identity, culture, homeland.