’Someone stole my story’ : Home and Trauma in Two Palestinian Novels

Abstract

This thesis will examine representations of home and trauma in the Palestinian novels Mornings in Jenin (2008) by Susan Abulhawa and Salt Houses (2017) by Hala Alyan. Written by Palestinian refugees now living in the United States, each of the two novels follows a Palestinian family through four generations, and depicts the struggle of creating a sense of belonging away from home. This thesis will focus on the individual experience of home, and examine the ways in which traumatic memories hinder the various characters’ ability to create belonging in exile. Storytelling and the construction of narrative also serve an important function in the novels, and I will explore how narrative is both a means to overcome trauma and an important element in the creation of personal and collective identity. This thesis will also demonstrate that although Mornings in Jenin and Salt Houses are representative of the Palestinian experience of displacement, they could also be considered global narratives.