Arab Exilic Modernism and Modalities of Coping in the Literary Corpus of Jabra Ibrahim Jabra

Abstract

This thesis examines the definitions and development of Jabra’s modernism through the concept of ‘belonging to the word,’ arguing that his literary project constitutes a sustained response to and coping with exile.

The first chapter analyzes The First Well as a foundational articulation of Jabra’s exilic modernism. It argues that the text transforms autobiographical memory into a literary structure shaped by displacement, in which loss is mediated through language. In this framework, ‘belonging to the word’ emerges as a compensatory and creative mode of being, allowing the subject to reconstruct selfhood through writing. The chapter situates this articulation within a specifically Palestinian post-Nakba context, while establishing language as the central axis of Jabra’s modernist project.

The second chapter traces the early formation of this linguistic belonging through Jabra’s engagement with Hamlet. Drawing on Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote, it reconceptualizes translation as a generative act shaped by historical and personal displacement. Jabra’s imagining of Hamlet as a Palestinian exile, his identification with the figure, and his experimentation with poetic form collectively reveal an early commitment to or belief in the materiality of language. Close textual analysis highlights subtle deviations in his translation that relocate action within the word itself.

Taken together, the thesis argues that Jabra’s modernism is neither derivative nor belated, but constitutes a distinct exilic mode grounded in language as a practice of survival. ‘Belonging to the word’ thus becomes the cumulative outcome of his literary engagement and coping with exile.