Poetics of commitment: Raḍwā ʿĀšūr reads Ġassān Kanafānī’s fiction in al-Ṭarīq ilā al-ḫayma al-uḫrā (‘The way to the other tent,’ 1981) and al-Ṭanṭūriyya (‘The woman from Tantoura,’ 2010)

Abstract

This article aims discusses how Raḍwā ʿĀšūr (1946-2014), an Egyptian academic, novelist and activist, critically analyzed and subsequently intertextually engaged with the fiction of Palestinian author Ġassān  Kanafānī in two works: the essay al-Ṭarīq ilā al-ḫayma al-uḫrā (‘The Way to the Other Tent,’ 1981) and her novel al-Ṭanṭūriyya (2010; translation: ‘The Woman from Tantoura,’ 2014).

I will highlight how the Palestinian author was a reference figure for Raḍwā ʿĀšūr in developing self-exploration and engaging with writing herself. ʿĀšūr’s Third-Worldist and Marxist reading of Kanafānī allowed her to establish an intertextual dialogue with the iconic author of the Palestinian liberation struggle, which reemerges in her concept of writing and in certain narrative choices within Al-Ṭanṭūriyya (2010), which the author herself defines as her “Palestinian Novel”. On the other hand, I will highlight how the critical essay on Kanafani’s works also presents radical critiques of Kanafānī’s works.

The intertextual dialogue between the two authors will be emphasized through Rancière’s concept of “politics of literature” (Rancière 2011), which will be used to shed light on both ʿĀšūr understanding and criticism of literary modernism in Kanafānī’s and her generational novel al-Ṭanṭūriyya.