The Narratives of Resistance in Mahmoud Darwish’s Unfortunately, it was Paradise: Selected Poems and Kazi Nazrul Islam’s The Poems of Kazi Nazrul Islam (Published)
This paper examines the manner in which political conflicts are represented in Mahmud Darwish’s his poetry collection Unfortunately, it was Paradise: Selected Poems and Kazi Nazrul Islam’s The Poems of Kazi Nazrul Islam. The question that guides this work is: how do Mahmud Darwish and Kazi Nazrul Islam project resistance in their respective collections of poems. It is hypothesized that on the backdrop of cause factors of the conflict and the suffering of the subjugated people, the poets project exile, resilience and defiance against occupation as strategies used by Palestinians and Bangladeshis in their resistance struggle. Using the Postcolonial theory and its concept of Resistance Literature as proposed by Barbara Harlow, the paper, which is divided into two parts, concludes that the fight between Israel and Palestine is a key aspect of Darwish’s poetry in the same way as the Bangladeshis fight against the British for independence is pivotal in Islam’s poetry; as they use their poems to show the sufferings of the conquered people due to these scuffles as well as their efforts in (re)gaining their freedom. The work highlights the manner in which Darwish and Islam use poetry as a form of personal as well as collective Palestinian and Bangladeshi resistance respectively; thereby projecting the narrative on the role of literature in social and political resistance.
Keywords: Bangladesh, Britain, Conflict, Israel, Palestine, Postcolonial Theory, Resistance
Women as a Symbol of Israel in Nathan Shaham’s “Hand of Fate” (“Yad ha-Goral”) (Published)
Nathan Shaham (נתן שחם) – a biographical sketch[1].Shaham is an Israeli writer who was born in Tel-Aviv in 1925. He was a member of the youth movements Mahanot Ha-Olim and Ha-Shomer Ha-Tsa’ir and in 1945 joined the kibbutz of Beit Alpha.In the years 1942-1945 he served with the Palmach and rejoined it in 1947. Subsequently he worked in the Israel Broadcasting Service and wrote for the press. Shaham comes from a family with literary connections. Both his father and his brother were writers, although neither attained his fame. Initially he tried his hand at writing poetry, but his most prominent and important works are in prose, among them the story collections Grain and Lead (Dagan Ve-Oferet), The Gods Are Lazy (Ha-Elim Atzelim) and Veterans’ Housing (Shikun Vatikim), the latter containing the story “Hand of Fate” that is the subject of the present study. In addition, Shaham wrote novels and plays, for example the novel Always Us (Tamid Anahnu) and the plays A Field beyond the Border (Sade Me-Ever La-Gvul) and They’ll Arrive Tomorrow (Hem Yagi’u Mahar), originally written as a story entitled “Seven of Them” F(Shiv’a Mehem”) and later turned into a play.
[1] For more information on the writer see The Hebrew Encyclopedia, Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem, 1965, vol. 13, p. 701.
Keywords: Hand of Fate, Israel, Nathan Shaman, Women, Yad ha-Goral, symbol