Transnational Literature of Resistance - by Salam Darwazah Mir (Paperback)

About the Book

"Examines resistance literatures from Guyana - a British exploitation colony - and Palestine - a settler-colony - at a specific historical moment, by contesting the provinciality and Eurocentric focus of comparative literature, delivering the discipline's universal objectives, and expanding the discipline's practice by comparing two literatures and histories from the Global South. The author argues that the emergence of resistance poetry in both countries at this historical juncture forms part of the resistance to Empire during decolonization, linking the formerly colonized and the presently colonized people in the Global South"--

Book Synopsis

Fills a gap in comparative studies, interrogating strategies of Empire in dominating the Indigenous and linking two modern cultures from the Global South.

Transnational Literature of Resistancecompares and contrasts resistance literatures from Guyana - a British exploitation colony - and Palestine - a settler colony - at a specific historical moment. Salam Darwazah Mircontests the provinciality and Eurocentric focus of comparative literature; delivers the discipline's universal objectives; and expands the discipline's practice by comparing two literatures and histories from the Global South.

Mir situates the literatures within their wider historical and literary heritage, a move that links the two countries from within the colonial/imperial framework. She argues that the British invasion of the protectorate of British Guiana in 1953 and the founding of the settler colony in Palestine in 1948, with imperial Britain at the helm, are colonial acts to strengthen and sustain Empire. The two colonial projects are evidence of the protean nature of Empire that evolves, reinvents itself, and reconstructs new comparable ploys and strategies of controlling the Global South.

Within this context, the emergence of poetry of resistance in both countries at this historical juncture is part and parcel of other forms of resistance during decolonization, linking the formerly colonized and the presently colonized people in the Global South. It is examined from within the framework of postcolonial theory, as Mir reads poetry as the voice of the people in their demands for freedom, equality, and national independence. Resistance poetry is thus born out of the need to assert identity, redress invisibility and erasure, reclaim national space and land, and reconstruct the history of the Indigenous.

Review Quotes

I applaud Salam Mir on this book; the comparison of literature from Guyana and Palestine, while accounting for colonial legacies, is original. There is a great need to bridge research from different regions of the Global South in such a manner (the Caribbean and the Middle East), and the selection of poems and memoirs is particularly compelling and provides a representative sense of agency and narratives in these contexts.
Sa'ed Atshan, Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies and Anthropology, Swarthmore College, USA

Salam Mir puts in conversation Guyanese and Palestinian resistance literature to find their points of convergence and divergence. Her postcolonial approach rests on a deep dive into history that lays bare the Eurocentrism of comparative studies, and comprehends the rootedness of the literatures of the Global South in the struggle for liberation.
Ibrahim G. Aoudé, Professor Emeritus of Ethnic Studies, University of Hawai'i, Manoa, USA

About the Author

Salam Darwazah Mir is an independent scholar and book review editor at Arab Studies Quarterly. She has taught English language and literature in the Middle East and the USA for more than 20 years, including as Associate Professor of English at Lasell University, USA, and Visiting Professor of English at Birzeit University, Palestine.