Political Engagement: The Palestinian Confessional Genre

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/arabstudquar.35.4.0360
• Published date: 01 October 2013
• Date: 01 October 2013
• Pages: 360-377
• Author: Salam Mir

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POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT:

THE PALESTINIAN CONFESSIONAL GENRE

Salam Mir

Abstract: The personal struggle and creative achievement of Fadwa Tuqan (1917-2003), one

of the most celebrated poets in the Arab world, signify the plight of the Palestinian people in

the twentieth century. Her autobiography, A Mountainous Journey, An Autobiography, integrates

the personal and collective struggle within the context of Arab-Muslim history. This article will

explore the established poet’s shift to the confessional genre as the Palestinian Muslim woman

writer investigates the historical events that befell her people. Inspired by “Poets of Resistance,”

I argue that the underpinnings of Tuqan’s investigation of the Arab-Muslim tradition proffer an

authentic, commanding voice that constructs an alternative history, challenging the dominant

patriarchal paradigms. What emerges is a singular feminine voice that forges an identity that

goes beyond the nightmare of history. In both the poetry and personal memoir, Tuqan’s career

and groundbreaking voice signify an early empowerment of women agents in the cultural

production of the Arab-Muslim world.

Keywords: Fadwa Tuqan, Palestinian literature, Arab-Muslim tradition, gender and Palestinian

literature, confessional genre, Palestinian identity

A Mountainous Journey, An Autobiography1 by Palestinian poet Fadwa Tuqan

(1917-2003) was rst published serially in 1978-79, in the Arab Israeli magazine

al Jadid. Autobiography is a personal account of the coming of age of this

accomplished Palestinian poet, who is among the most celebrated contemporary

women poets in the Arab world. The text traces the poet’s personal struggle against

oppression in her conservative Muslim, environment, tradition-bound literary

journey, and her triumph at nding her voice. A deeply intimate and private

persona emerges. Poetry is equated with freedom and liberation, song and dance,

love and mystery. The biography of the private self, moreover, is integrated into

the public history of home and “school,” city and country. A dialectic concept of

history emerges; the personal and the collective intertwine. Oppression/resistance;

submission/rebellion; male patriarchy/feminine voice; colonial/anti-colonial; and

occupation/liberation constitute the framework from which the private individual

and the patriotic poet operate. Tuqan’s resonant voice is packed with dates and

signicant events about the poet’s personal life and Palestinian history from

Salam Mir is Associate Professor of English at Lasell College, Massachusetts.

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POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT 361

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the early 1920s through 1967, as they have informed the poet and her people.

Resistance is the fundamental means through which Tuqan interrogates the

Muslim Arab tradition of the period to overcome the rigid rules of home, society

and state. As I will argue in this article, Tuqan’s singular feminine position is an

early secular voice for the Muslim Arab woman in the twentieth century. This

article will trace the dynamic odyssey of Fadwa Tuqan in An Autobiography to

illustrate her shifting stance to political commitment, the confessional genre, the

construction of history and the reframing of resistance.

The Personal History

Autobiography relates the personal, poetic, and literary journey of Fadwa Tuqan. As

the seventh daughter of one of Nablus’ most conservative, landed families, Tuqan

had to contend with her tradition-bound, Muslim family and city. An eyewitness

account, the narrative is organized in short sections that move between the

personal life and the public history. Tuqan states that her story is one of “struggle,

deprivation, and enormous difculties” (Autobiography 11). The Arabic word for

difcult (s‘aba) appears in the Arabic title of the autobiography. The reviewed

literature suggests that Tuqan’s struggle for liberation from the traditional Muslim

Arab culture reects the plight of Muslim Arab women in general.

From a young age, Fadwa Tuqan had to contend with the obstacles of her social,

religious, and literary traditions. Forced to wear the veil and forbidden to attend

school, she was kept in the house. She felt imprisoned. Her relationship with

various members of her family and dialogue with literary gures and traditions

reveal the process by which she interrogated social and literary codes as she

struggled to dene herself as a human being and a poet. Invoking the mythical

gure of Sisyphus, Fadwa states: “I carried the rock and endured the fatigue of

endless ascents and descents” (Autobiography 12). Considering this experience, it

is instructive to examine how Tuqan found a way to insert her independence into

this conservative environment.

The traditional Muslim Arab family, represented in Autobiography by the

Tuqan family, is organized hierarchically according to sex and age. The younger

are subordinate to the elder, females to males, with the father as the head of the

household. Young females are additionally subordinate to older ones. Women’s

place in the family and the society at large is subordinate; their purpose in life is

to serve and obey the male. Being the seventh female in the family, young Fadwa

had many rulers: “Whatever others supposed to be right, even if it was wrong,

was what I had to accept” (Autobiography 18), she says. Halim Barakat reveals

that at the turn of the century, Arab women were secluded and segregated; their

roles were restricted to wife, mother, daughter, sister, and mother-in-law, etc. Their

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