On rights, ruins and returns: Rachel Tzvia Back’s Israeli anglophone lyric palimpsest

Abstract

ABSTRACTWritten at the height of the Second Intifada, Israeli anglophone poet Rachel Tzvia Back’s On Ruins & Return uncovers the politics of Palestinian indigeneity and the material realities of occupation. Back evokes the near-extinct buffalo and crafts a “lyric palimpsest” to draw a line between settler colonialism in North America and Israel–Palestine. This article offers an overview of the understudied field of Israeli anglophone literature and its affinity to postcolonial and global anglophone discourses through an examination of Back’s transnational mobility, the role of English as a colonial-turned-global language in Israel–Palestine, the architectural legacy of British colonialism in Jerusalem, and anti-colonial resistance. The article analyses Back’s postcolonial lyric palimpsest in terms of its form, theme, authorial voice and audience, and argues that English-language writing challenges Israeli nationalism, while simultaneously underscoring the ongoing repercussions of colonialism.