Edward Said’s Interlocutors in Portuguese and Spanish: Frontiers of a Futura Palestina
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24847/v13i12026.546Keywords:
Edward Said, Milton Hatoum, Lina Meruane, Palestine, Luso-Hispanic frontiers, US–Latin American relationsAbstract
This article asks how Milton Hatoum in Brazil and Lina Meruane from Chile each borrowed from Edward Said (1935–2003) as well as crossed over into the United States where their intellectual and political synergies drew less interest than the provenance of migrant forebears. Each writer catalyzed and carried on Said’s critique of orientalism and commitment to present-day Palestine, though Hatoum’s father departed French-mandate Lebanon for Brazil, and Meruane’s paternal grandparents journeyed from Ottoman Palestine to Chile. To paraphrase Said, I suggest that the two highly acclaimed authors anticipated and speculated how migrant “filiations” can be supplanted by and lead to more global “affiliations,” namely in relation to Palestinian self-determination. This futura Palestina (future Palestine, in Portuguese and Spanish) emerges in their dialogues across print and digital domains as well as southern and northern hemispheres. Despite respective debuts some twenty years apart, Hatoum and Meruane, in connection with Said, point to a future Palestine that is about not only origin and return but also beginning and border-crossing.
References
Abboudy, Rasha Mohamed. “Diáspora y/o Transnacionalidad en Volverse Palestina de Lina Meruane.” Candil: Revista del Hispanismo-Egipto 18, no. 2 (2018): 810–32.
Albuquerque, Gabriel. “Um autor, várias vozes: identidade, alteridade e poder na narrativa de Milton Hatoum.” Estudos de Literatura Brasileira Contemporânea 28 (2006): 125–40.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1987.
Brennan, Timothy. Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2021.
Bernard, Anna. “Not Afraid to Make Connections: Edward Said and Salman Rushdie’s Latin American Solidarity.” LASA Forum 47, no. 1 (2016): 31–34.
Birman, Daniela. “Canibalismo literário: Exotismo e orientalismo sob a ótica de Milton Hatoum.” Alea 10, no. 2 (2008): 243–55. https://doi.org/10.1590/S1517-106X2008000200006. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/S1517-106X2008000200006
Bryant, Rebecca and Daniel M. Knight. The Anthropology of the Future. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Edoro-Glines, Ainehi. “Unruly Archives: Literary Form and the Social Media Imaginary.” ELH 89, no. 2 (2022): 523–46. https://doi.org/10.1353/elh.2022.0019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/elh.2022.0019
Espinoza, Marcia A. Vera. “The Politics of Resettlement: Expectations and Unfulfilled Promises in Chile and Brazil.” In Refugee Resettlement Power, Politics, and Humanitarian Governance, edited by Adèle Garnier, Kristin Bergtora Sandvik, and Liliana Lyra Jubilut, 223–43. New York: Berghahn, 2018.
https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvw04brz.14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvw04brz.14
Feldman, Keith. A Shadow Over Palestine: The Imperial Life of Race in America. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2015. https://doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816694501.001.0001. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816694501.001.0001
Gerlach, Kátia Bandeira de Mello. “Corra, Lina, Corra: Entrevista com a chilena Lina Meruane, autora de ‘Sangue no olho’.” Rascunho: o jornal de literatura do Brasil 181 (2015): https://rascunho.com.br/entrevista/corra-lina-corra/.
Gledson, John. Review of The Tree of the Seventh Heaven by Milton Hatoum. Translated by Ellen Watson. Translation and Literature 4, no. 2 (1995): 267–69. https://doi.org/10.3366/tal.1995.4.2.267. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/tal.1995.4.2.267
Gualtieri, Sarah M. A. Arab Routes: Pathways to Syrian California. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503610866. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503610866
Gualtieri, Sarah M. A. “Edward Said, the AAUG, and Arab American Archival Methods.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 38, no. 1 (2018): 21–29. https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201x-4389943. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201x-4389943
Hamid, Sônia Cristina. “(Des)integrando refugiados: os processos do reassentamento de palestinos no Brasil.” PhD diss. Universidade de Brasília, 2012.
Hardman, Francisco Foot. “Morrer em Manaus: os avatares da memória em Milton Hatoum.” Tempo Brasileiro 141 (2000): 5–15.
Hassan, Waïl. Arab Brazil: Fictions of Ternary Orientalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197688762.001.0001. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197688762.001.0001
Hatoum, Milton. “Arabescos Brasileiros,” Alef (Summer 2008): 132–35.
Hatoum, Milton. “Arabescos Brasileiros.” Mashriq & Mahjar 1, no. 2 (2013): 3–16. https://doi.org/10.24847/11i2013.12. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24847/11i2013.12
Hatoum, Milton. “Arabescos Brasileiros.” PEN International 57, no. 2 (2007): 19–24.
Hatoum, Milton, Rita Chaves, and Nazir Can. “ ‘Há mais de 40 livros e uma incrível quantidade de artigos e teses sobre Orientalismo, uma obra que inspirou várias reflexões sobre o olhar imperial na África, Ásia, Amazônia’ – entrevista com Milton Hatoum.” Exilium 4, no. 6 (2023): 181–96. https://doi.org/10.34024/exilium.v4i6.15232. DOI: https://doi.org/10.34024/exilium.v4i6.15232
Hitti, Philip. The Syrians in America. New York: George H. Doran, 1924.
Karam, John Tofik. “Arab Americana: Redrawing ‘Hemispheric Partitions.’ ” In The Routledge History of Modern Latin American Migration, edited by Andreas E. Feldmann, Xóchitl Bada, Jorge Durand, and Stephanie Schütze, 130–43. New York: Routledge, 2022. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003118923-12. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003118923-12
Karam, John Tofik. “I, Too, Am the Americas: Arabs in the Redrawing of Area and Ethnic Studies.” Journal of American Ethnic History 37, no. 3 (2018): 93–101. https://doi.org/10.5406/jamerethnhist.37.3.0093. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5406/jamerethnhist.37.3.0093
Karam, John Tofik. Manifold Destiny: Arabs at an American Crossroads of Exceptional Rule. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2021. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1dv0w1j. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1dv0w1j
Kayal, Philip and Joseph Kayal. The Syrian-Lebanese in America: A Study in Religion and Assimilation. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1975.
Khater, Akram. Inventing Home: Emigration, Gender, and the Middle Class in Lebanon, 1870–1920. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520935686. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520935686
Khoury, Elias. Yalo. Tradução de Safa Jubran. São Paulo: Editora Record, 2012.
Leão, Allison. “Representações do intelectual em Relato de um certo Oriente.”Aletria: Revista de Estudos de Literatura 16, no. 2 (2007): 158–67. https://doi.org/10.17851/2317-2096.16.2.158-167. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17851/2317-2096.16.2.158-167
Liando, Neli Côndello. “Recortes para um certo oriente: o estilhaçar da memória no romance de Milton Hatoum.” Revista de Letras 7 (2005): 1–10.
Marcondes, Marleine Paula and Ferreira de Toledo. Milton Hatoum: Itinerário para um certo Relato. São Paulo: Ateliê Editorial, 2006.
Meruane, Lina. Volverse Palestina. Santiago de Chile: Literatura Random House, 2014.
McCarthy, Conor. The Cambridge Introduction to Edward Said. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511780769. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511780769
Miravet, Dunia Gras. “En el nombre del padre: Volverse Palestina, Volvernos otros, de Lina Meruane, versiones de una obra en marcha.” Revista Letral 22 (2019): 169–98.
Morales, Cristina and Octavi Rofes. “Lina Meruane’s Palestine Writing: Becoming–World in World Literature.” Language, Literature, and Interdisciplinary Studies 5, no. 2 (2022): 15–38. https://doi.org/10.71106/JVUO5738. DOI: https://doi.org/10.71106/JVUO5738
Munem, Bahia. “A Política do Discurso Humanitário Brasileiro: Reflexões a Partir do Reassentamento de Palestinos no Brasil.” In Migrações Internacionais: Abordagens de Direitos Humanos, edited by Carmem Lussi, 119–36. Brasília: CSEM – Centro Scalabriniano de Estudos Migratórios, 2017.
Munem, Bahia and Sônia Cristina Hamid. “Diasporic Palestinian Communities in Brazil and Hierarchies of Belonging.” Revista Territórios e Fronteiras 13, no. 2 (2021): 192–213. https://doi.org/10.22228/rtf.v13i2.1050. DOI: https://doi.org/10.22228/rtf.v13i2.1050
Naff, Alixa. Becoming American: The Early Arab Immigrant Experience. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985.
Nasser, Tahia Abdel. “Palestine and Latin America: Lina Meruane’s Volverse Palestina and Nathalie Handal, La Estrella Invisible.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing 54, no. 2 (2018): 239–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2017.1325771. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2017.1325771
Page, Ruth E. Stories and Social Media: Identities and Interaction. New York: Routledge, 2011.
Poblete, Juan. “Introduction.” In Critical Latin American and Latino Studies, edited by Juan Poblete. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.
Pratt, Mary Louise. Los imaginarios planetarios. Madrid: Editorial Aluvión, 2018.
Pratt, Mary Louise. Planetary Longings. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478022909. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478022909
Provoste, Alejandra Ochoa. “Desplazamientos y Apropiaciones: La construcción del yo en Volverse Palestina, de Lina Meruane.” Alpha 50 (2020): 97–111. DOI: https://doi.org/10.32735/S0718-2201202000050779
Said, Edward. Beginnings: Intention and Method. New York: Basic Books, 1975.
Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.
Said, Edward. “Representing the Colonized: Anthropology’s Interlocutors.” Critical Inquiry 15, no. 2 (1989): 205–25. https://doi.org/10.1086/448481. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/448481
Said, Edward. The World, the Text, and the Critic. New York: Vintage, 1983.
Schwartz, Jorge. “Abaixo Tordesilhas,” Estudos Avançados 7, no. 17 (1993): 185–200. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0103-40141993000100008 . DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0103-40141993000100008
Shohat, Ella Habiba and Evelyn Azeeza Alsultany, eds. Between the Middle East and the Americas: The Cultural Politics of Diaspora. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.143813. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.143813
Stougaard-Nielsen, Jakob. “The Author in Literary Theory and Theories of Literature.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Literary Authorship, edited by Ingo Berensmeyer, Gert Buelens, and Marysa Demoor, 270–87. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316717516.017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316717516.017
Toledo, Marleine Paula and Ferreira de Marcondes. Milton Hatoum: Itinerário para um certo Relato. Cotia: Ateliê Editorial, 2006.
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. “The Caribbean Region: An Open Frontier in Anthropological Theory.” Annual Review of Anthropology 21 (2019): 19–42. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.21.100192.000315. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.21.1.19
van der Weel, Adriaan. “Literary Authorship in the Digital Age.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Literary Authorship, edited by Ingo Berensmeyer, Gert Buelens, and Marysa Demoor, 218–33. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316717516.014. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316717516.014
Weiss, Margot. “The Interlocutor Slot: Citing, Crediting, Cotheorizing, and the Problem of Ethnographic Expertise.” American Anthropologist 12, no. 4 (2021): 948–53. https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.13639. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.13639
Williams, Patrick. “Nothing in the Post? – Said and the Problem of Post-Colonial Intellectuals.” In Edward Said and the Post-Colonial, edited by Bill Ashcroft and Hussein Kadhim, 31–55. Huntington, NY: Nova Science Publishers, 2001.
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 John Karam (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
The content of this journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.