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Poetic Trespass: Writing between Hebrew and Arabic in Israel/Palestine
A Palestinian-Israeli poet declares a new state whose language, "Homelandic," is a combination of Arabic and Hebrew. A Jewish-Israeli author imagines a "language plague" that infects young Hebrew speakers with old world accents, and sends the narrator in search of his Arabic heritage. In Poetic Trespass, Lital Levy brings together such startling visions to offer the first in-depth study of the relationship between Hebrew and Arabic in the literature and culture of Israel/Palestine. More than that, she presents a captivating portrait of the literary imagination's power to transgress political boundaries and transform ideas about language and belonging.
Blending history and literature, Poetic Trespass traces the interwoven life of Arabic and Hebrew in Israel/Palestine from the turn of the twentieth century to the present, exposing the two languages' intimate entanglements in contemporary works of prose, poetry, film, and visual art by both Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel. In a context where intense political and social pressures work to identify Jews with Hebrew and Palestinians with Arabic, Levy finds writers who have boldly crossed over this divide to create literature in the language of their "other," as well as writers who bring the two languages into dialogue to rewrite them from within.
Exploring such acts of poetic trespass, Levy introduces new readings of canonical and lesser-known authors, including Emile Habiby, Hayyim Nahman Bialik, Anton Shammas, Saul Tchernichowsky, Samir Naqqash, Ronit Matalon, Salman Masalha, A. B. Yehoshua, and Almog Behar. By revealing uncommon visions of what it means to write in Arabic and Hebrew, Poetic Trespass will change the way we understand literature and culture in the shadow of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Blending history and literature, Poetic Trespass traces the interwoven life of Arabic and Hebrew in Israel/Palestine from the turn of the twentieth century to the present, exposing the two languages' intimate entanglements in contemporary works of prose, poetry, film, and visual art by both Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel. In a context where intense political and social pressures work to identify Jews with Hebrew and Palestinians with Arabic, Levy finds writers who have boldly crossed over this divide to create literature in the language of their "other," as well as writers who bring the two languages into dialogue to rewrite them from within.
Exploring such acts of poetic trespass, Levy introduces new readings of canonical and lesser-known authors, including Emile Habiby, Hayyim Nahman Bialik, Anton Shammas, Saul Tchernichowsky, Samir Naqqash, Ronit Matalon, Salman Masalha, A. B. Yehoshua, and Almog Behar. By revealing uncommon visions of what it means to write in Arabic and Hebrew, Poetic Trespass will change the way we understand literature and culture in the shadow of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
- GenresPoetry
360 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2014
6 people are currently reading
72 people want to read
About the author
Lital Levy
3 books7 followersLital Levy is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University, where she teaches Modern Hebrew and Arabic literatures and literary theory. Her first book, Poetic Trespass: Writing between Hebrew and Arabic in Israel/Palestine, was published by Princeton University Press in 2014 and was a co-winner of the 2014 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award in Jewish Literature and Linguistics, presented by the Association for Jewish Studies.
She is currently working on her next book, provisionally titled Partitioned Pasts: Jewish Writers in the Arab East, which examines the intellectual history of Arab Jews from 1863-1948. It is expected to be published by Stanford University Press in 2016.
Professor Levy holds a B.A. in Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University, a Master of International Affairs, also from Columbia, and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from U.C. Berkeley.
She is currently working on her next book, provisionally titled Partitioned Pasts: Jewish Writers in the Arab East, which examines the intellectual history of Arab Jews from 1863-1948. It is expected to be published by Stanford University Press in 2016.
Professor Levy holds a B.A. in Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University, a Master of International Affairs, also from Columbia, and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from U.C. Berkeley.
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November 29, 2017
Levy introduces the study with an exploration of the notion of the no-man’s-land of language. She defines Hebrew/Arabic in the Israeli context as a space between Hebrew and Arabic, as well as a space outside the conventional concept of Hebrew for Jews and Arabic for Arabs. The author terms this space “Poetic Trespass,” a realm of discourse “in-between,” where authors, through their writings, transgress boundaries and expand the customary notions of language, belonging and identity embedded in the sociopolitical paradigm of Israel. “That in-between space is the no-man’s-land,” Levy writes referring to the Poetic Trespass, “the space of cultural encounter whose history this book seeks to narrate.” (28 f.)
Indeed, the question of using Arabic and Hebrew by Arabs and Jews in Israel is thoroughly discussed throughout the book. The study also develops a prism of postcolonial literature in looking at literary works by both Israeli Arabs and Mizrahi Jews. Although Levy raises general questions in regard to language contact and bilingualism in the writing of both Mizrahi and Palestinian authors, her study is not deeply rooted in linguistic and stylistics theories that deal with such linguistic and literary phenomena springing from writing in an ‘exophonic’ modeexophony . This argument, however, does not diminish the great importance of the book as a comprehensive literary study of writing in Hebrew and Arabic in Israel.
The study of Mizrahi literature in Israel from the perspectives of bilingualism, multilingualism and postcolonial literature informs Levy’s innovative approach to such authors and their literature. What is more, the study of Mizrahi Jewish/Palestinian literature from this vantage point of analysis can contribute to the investigation of writing by authors in their non-mother tongue in general by exploring new areas of bilingual paradigms in literature outside the metropolitan European boundaries, of which Semitic languages, namely Hebrew/Arabic, clearly are representative.
Levy’s Poetic Trespass addresses scholars whose interests lie with postcolonial literature, bilingualism in literature and the sociolinguistic study of literature, particularly in relation to language and power. The book introduces an innovative approach, arguing that the literary work of Mizrahi Jews should be remapped in association with concepts drawn from postcolonial or post-immigration literature and their study. In addition, it opens other fields of possible research on Mizrahi Jews, the literature of generations, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and dualism in literature, as well as East-West negotiations and entanglements as reflected in the Mizrahi/Ashkenazi prototype.
Indeed, the question of using Arabic and Hebrew by Arabs and Jews in Israel is thoroughly discussed throughout the book. The study also develops a prism of postcolonial literature in looking at literary works by both Israeli Arabs and Mizrahi Jews. Although Levy raises general questions in regard to language contact and bilingualism in the writing of both Mizrahi and Palestinian authors, her study is not deeply rooted in linguistic and stylistics theories that deal with such linguistic and literary phenomena springing from writing in an ‘exophonic’ modeexophony . This argument, however, does not diminish the great importance of the book as a comprehensive literary study of writing in Hebrew and Arabic in Israel.
The study of Mizrahi literature in Israel from the perspectives of bilingualism, multilingualism and postcolonial literature informs Levy’s innovative approach to such authors and their literature. What is more, the study of Mizrahi Jewish/Palestinian literature from this vantage point of analysis can contribute to the investigation of writing by authors in their non-mother tongue in general by exploring new areas of bilingual paradigms in literature outside the metropolitan European boundaries, of which Semitic languages, namely Hebrew/Arabic, clearly are representative.
Levy’s Poetic Trespass addresses scholars whose interests lie with postcolonial literature, bilingualism in literature and the sociolinguistic study of literature, particularly in relation to language and power. The book introduces an innovative approach, arguing that the literary work of Mizrahi Jews should be remapped in association with concepts drawn from postcolonial or post-immigration literature and their study. In addition, it opens other fields of possible research on Mizrahi Jews, the literature of generations, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and dualism in literature, as well as East-West negotiations and entanglements as reflected in the Mizrahi/Ashkenazi prototype.
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