Biography
Much of the post/colonial fiction available to English-speaking readers is written by native historical witnesses; that is to say, the author has lived through what s/he writes, or is inspired by events and circumstances occurring in the country of his/her origin. Sahar Khalifeh, a Palestinian from Nablus, a town in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, is no exception to this trend. Khalifeh was born during the British mandate over Palestine, in 1941. She married at the age of eighteen and divorced thirteen years later, leaving a frustrating marriage for an American education in literature and women's studies. Her first novel was confiscated by the Israelis, the second was first published in Cairo. She taught at the University of Iowa and Bir Zeit University, the premier institution of Palestinian higher education. She founded the Women's Affairs Center in Nablus, with additional branches in Gaza City and Amman.
Wild Thorns and the Representation of the Individual Agent
Khalifeh's writing intersects issues of feminism, post/colonial oppression, life under occupation, and the position of the individual in all these registers. In Wild Thorns, Khalifeh illustrates the varying responses to Israeli occupation sustained by Palestinians: "surviving" complacently under colonial constraints is contrasted to and informs the insistence on militancy as a necessary venue of resistance. The condition of diaspora is never a totalizing structure for Khalifeh, who crafts each character as a subjective prism. The individual as historical agent is always legible in Wild Thorns; whether in the example of the underground, militant high schoolers, or the shopkeeper who sells groceries to Israeli soldiers or the village mothers who ululate in solidarity and protest while occupiers bulldoze their homes, Khalifeh allows the reader to hear a chorus of voices in the cacaphony of occupation. Her own biography proves her a powerful agent in the trajectory of Palestinian history, bridging the individual with the collective, the subjective with the historical.
Novels
Khalifeh's
books include We Are Not Your Slave Girls Anymore (1974), which
was serialized and made into a radio program, Wild Thorns (1975),
her most acclaimed novel, (English translation by Al-Saqi books, 1985),
The Sunflower (1980), Memoirs of an Unrealistic Woman (1986),
a novel about a woman caught in a loveless marriage, The Door of the
Courtyard (1990), and The Inheritance (1997), her most recent
work. Khalifeh is the most celebrated Palestinian novelist; her works have
been translated into a variety of language, including Hebrew, Dutch, Russian
and Swedish, as well as English. For a full listing of her works and available
translations, please see: http://www.sakakini.org/novelists/writings.htm
.
(The image if of al-Mirath (The Inheritance), Khalifeh's latest novel.)
Related Topics and Links
Only known English-language interview with author: Nazareth, Peter. "An Interview with Sahar Khalifeh," Iowa Review 11.1(1980):67-86.
Press release of Sahar Khalifeh discussing her sixth novel: (Date Unknown): n.pag. Online. Darat al Funun. Internet. 31 March 1998. Available: http://www.daratalfunun.org/main/activit/pressc1/press1.html
Online Resource for Palestinian Culture (includes bibliographies and biographies of authors, including Khalifeh): Bailasan Co. (January 1997): n.pag. Online. Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center. Internet. (18 April 1998) Available: http://www.sakakini.org/
Article on Arab Women Writers: Amireh, Amal. "Problems and Prospects for Publishing in the West: Arab Women Writers Today," Al-Jadid Magazine 2.10 (August 1996) Available: http://www.igc.apc.org/solidarity/amal67.txt
Al-Nakba (The Cataclysm), A Site About the Destruction of Palestine: Bailasan Co. (Date Unknown): n.pag. Online. Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center. Internet (31 March 1998) Available:http://www.alnakba.org
A Selected Bibliography of Works by Arab Women Writers
I. Secondary/Critical Texts
II. Primary Texts (Fiction)
III. Auto/biography
IV. Folklore
Citation
Khalifeh, Sahar. Wild Thorns, trans. By Trevor LeGassick and Elizabeth Fernea. Worcester, UK: Al-Saqi Books, 1976.
Author: Nader Khalaf Uthman (nku@emory.edu).
Spring 1998.
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& Issues(Image of an "Homme Carrefour" from Donald J. Cosentino's Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou [Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 1995].)