Historiographic Metafiction: A Study of Susan Abulhawa’s The Blue Between Sky and Water

Abstract

This article aims to show the application of historiographic metafiction in Susan Abulhawa’s The Blue Between Sky and Water (2016), highlighting the embodiment of historiographic metafictional characteristics in rewriting Palestinian history, exactly the Nakba (1948). Since Linda Hutcheon calls for revision of the past in order to rewrite history, Abulhawa’s work has granted her a place among postmodern literary authors since she does so. Such an aesthetic and resisting act aims at acknowledging falsity and prejudice practiced by both ends responsible of historical documentation: the winner and the looser. This study argues that metafictional techniques allow the author to re-visit the Nakba (1948), re-present the events and eventually allow readers to re-pen history. Simultaneously, the novel’s historiographic metafictional characteristics will be underscored including challenging one historical truth, blending history and fiction, using self-reflexive narration, narrating through an openly controlling narrator, and importing real and famous historical and political personalities. The findings show that historiographic metafiction is applicable in Abulhawa’s novel. Interestingly, this paper demonstrates how the author enlarges her scope of writing, by adding postmodern dimension to the political and historical issues she depicts.