Entre a Catástrofe e o Triunfo: as construções das identidades nacionais em de Amor e Trevas, de Amós Oz, e Once Upon a Country, de Sari Nusseibeh

Abstract

This piece presents a comparative and critical analysis between the books A Tale of Love and Darkness by the israeli writer Amos Oz and Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life by the palestinian writer Sari Nusseibeh. Written in the early 21st century, the works belong to the espaço biográfico by mixing personal and collective memories with fictional elements. Thus, this work aims to investigate how Palestinian and Israeli national identities were constructed in the works, through their fractures and contradictions. To achieve this goal, the study uses Comparative Literature and Biographical Criticism, and the literary analysis is reinforced by articles and interviews with the authors to deepen the intersections between memory, literature, history, and identity in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict within the works. The analysis also examines how each of the works represents the Nakba — the Arabic term for the Catastrophe — which marked the creation of the State of Israel and resulted in a historic crisis for the Palestinians. In seeking to deepen the analysis of the construction of national identities as well as the boundaries between memory and literature, addressing how the works are embedded within the biographical space, exploring their similarities and differences, while examining how Israeli and Palestinian identities are constructed and intertwined through representations of the “other.” In this context, the analysis primarily addresses how Arabs and Palestinians are represented in Oz's narrative, as well as how Jews and Israelis in Nusseibeh’s work.