Ways of being Palestinian: autobiography as critical emplotment in the work of Fawaz Turki

Abstract

ABSTRACT Autobiography has become an increasingly prominent form of Palestinian literature since the 1980s, giving rise to scholarly discussions about how best to read, interpret, and analyze Palestinian life narratives. Using the memoirs of Palestinian poet Fawaz Turki as an illustrative example, this article challenges a prevailing scholarly view that Palestinian narratives should be read and understood, before all else, as “counterdiscourse” to Zionism. However much this framework illuminates the colonial backdrop and testimonial potential of Palestinian life-writing, it risks flattening Palestinian autobiographies into a single national mold and framing Zionism as the central locus of Palestinian self-expression. Mindful of these dangers, this article draws on the work of David Scott to argue that Palestinian autobiographies can be more fruitfully interpreted as exercises in “critical emplotment” and analyzed as narrative undertakings by which Palestinians creatively (re)interpret their pasts and identities in light of the always-shifting circumstances in which they find themselves.