The Arab Australian novel: between nation and diaspora

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

    Abstract

    In 2007, Syrine Hout argued that the Arab Australian author Jad El Hage’s The Last Migration: A Novel of Diaspora and Love (2002) was the first Lebanese and, by extension, Arab, diaspora novel. Hout’s claim suggests that any writing by Arab Australians that preceded El Hage’s novel was beyond the bounds of diasporic literature. Her argument implies historical progression where migrant writers start as unsettled exiles and evolve into settled diasporic writers. The irony in the Australian context is that very few Arab Australian novels exist prior to 2002, meaning that if Hout’s claim is correct, the trajectory that The Last Migration benefited from must have come from its interaction with anglophone Arab writing being shaped elsewhere, where longer histories exist, and alongside other migrant writing in Australia. This chapter focuses on a range of Arab Australian novels to reveal how and in what ways this writing is deeply Australian while simultaneously embedded in a diasporic writerly milieu. It does so by contextualising these novels within diasporic and nationalist frameworks to illustrate how such texts do not easily fit the kind of literary categorisations posited by Hout.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationThe Cambridge history of the Australian novel
    EditorsDavid Carter
    Place of PublicationCambridge, UK ; New York
    PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP)
    Chapter37
    Pages629-645
    Number of pages17
    ISBN (Electronic)9781009090049
    ISBN (Print)9781316514856, 9781009088565
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2023

    Keywords

    • Arab Australian novel
    • exile
    • diaspora
    • nation
    • Loubna Haikal
    • Michael Mohammed Ahmad
    • Randa Abdel-Fattah
    • Abbas El-Zein

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