Catastrophe and Exile in the Modern Palestinian Imagination explores the
cultural memory of al-Nakba (1948 Israeli independence, or The
Catastrophe as it is known in Palestine) and its significance to the
modern Palestinian imagination. Ihab Saloul addresses central concepts
to debates over identity such as nostalgia and trauma, notions of home
and forced travel, and geopolitical continuity of loss of place. Through
an integrated method of close narrative and discursive analysis of
diverse literary texts, films, and personal narratives, this study
offers an analytical account of the preservation of cultural optimism in
the face of the ongoing catastrophe, as well as the ways in which
aesthetics and politics intersect in contemporary Palestinian culture.