The Ego and the Other Dialectic in the <i>Mariam Miriam </i>Novel of Kamil Abu Hanish

Abstract

The relationship of the self with the other is always problematic, for the other as a cultural, religious or physical difference constitutes a horizon for the self, and part of our view of it, whether the other is presented as a peaceful partner, an invading entity, an arrogant occupier, or a compromising negotiator; he is always present in the public domain of self-awareness. Therefore, the other is the subject of both a temptation and source of precaution and caution. This study of the image of the other in the novel <i>Mariam Miriam</i> by the Palestinian writer Kamil Abu Hanish, published by the House of Adab in Beirut in 2019, on the Jew (the other), who forms the basis of the conflict between the self and the other on the real ground, will try to explain and clarify the image the writer draws in his narration of the self and the Jewish the other, which has been multifaced since the beginning of the Arab-Zionist conflict and the establishment of their state. It is noteworthy that the writer is an educated left-wing Palestinian activist, who is serving a nine-life sentence in the Israeli occupation prisons. He has many novels, a poetry collection, dozens of studies, in addition to political and critical articles, that he has completed from his prison cells. Accordingly, how will the image of the ego and the other appear in this novel? The image of the other is not complete except through defining the image of the self, according to the approach of opposite mirrors. So, we have to trace how the ego portrays itself and its other within the author's imagination.