Identity Crisis in Arab Diasporic Novel: A Case Study of Lebanese American Novel

Authors

  • Mubarak Altwaiji
  • Ebrahim Mohammed Alwuraafi Al Baha University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7596/taksad.v10i1.3008

Keywords:

Arab Americans, Lebanese, Culture, Diaspora, Homeland, Identity, Novel

Abstract

Very little has been written on cultural identity and national identity in contemporary Lebanese novel in the diaspora. This study explores how border identity is presented in Rabih Alameddine's Koolaids (1998), I, the Divine (2001), and The Angel of History (2016), three novels about the failure of the Lebanese immigrants to establish their cultural identity in the diaspora. It also gives a bird's-eye view of the myriad problems encountered by the immigrants while trying to build their cultural identity. Rabih Alameddine, a Lebanese American writer whose early literary pursuits focus on melting in the new homeland, represents the impossibility of redefinition and introduces the immigrants' remarkable preoccupation with the quest for national identity and nationhood. He mixes melancholic and ridiculous moments to represent the quest for cultural identity in order to subvert the neo-orientalist discourse which is based on the East/West dichotomy. Moreover, the use of multiple settings and narrators in each novel is also a common theme that explains the physical and psychological effects of the Lebanese civil war and the Lebanese ethnic categories in the diaspora.

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Published

2021-03-31

How to Cite

Altwaiji, M., & Alwuraafi, E. M. . (2021). Identity Crisis in Arab Diasporic Novel: A Case Study of Lebanese American Novel. Journal of History Culture and Art Research, 10(1), 74-83. https://doi.org/10.7596/taksad.v10i1.3008