The Folktales of Palestine

Folktales are instrumental in ensuring the survival of oral traditions and strengthening communal bonds. Both the stories and the process of storytelling itself help to define social, cultural and political identity. For Palestinians, the threat of losing their heritage has engendered a sense of urgency among storytellers and Palestinian folklorists. Yet there has been remarkably little academic scholarship dedicated to the tradition.

Farah Aboubakr here analyses a selection of folktales edited, compiled and translated by Ibrahim Muhawi and Sharif Kanaana in Speak, Bird, Speak Again (1989). In addition to the folktales themselves, Muhawi and Kanaana's collection is renowned for providing readers with extensive folkloric, historical and anthropological annotations. Here, for the first time, the folktales and the compilers' work on them, are the subject of scholarly analysis. Synthesising various disciplines including memory studies, gender studies and social movement studies, Aboubakr uses the collection to understand the politics of storytelling and its impact on Palestinian identity. In particular, the book draws attention to the female storytellers who play an essential role in transmitting and preserving collective memory and culture. The book is an important step towards analysing a significant genre of Palestinian literature and will be relevant to scholars of Palestinian politics and popular culture, gender studies and memory studies, and those interested in folklore and oral literature.

Autorentext

Farah Aboubakr is a Teaching Fellow and Researcher at the University of Edinburgh. She specialises in memory studies and Palestinian popular culture.

Inhalt

Note on Transliteration
Introduction
Chapter 1. Collective Memory in Palestine: Introductory Note
Palestinian Oral History
The 1948 Nakba, Trauma and Nostalgia
Storytelling and Language
Chapter 2. Palestinian Folktales: Speak, Bird, Speak Again (1989) and Qul Ya Tayer (2001)
Folktales: Reality versus Imagination
Palestinian Folk Narratives
The Society of Storytellers in Palestine
The Functions of Folktales in Palestinian Society
The Psychological Function
The Social Function
The Belief Function
Paratextual Material in Speak, Bird, Speak Again and Qul ya Tayer ??? ?? ???
Pre-Introduction Paratextual Materials (Materials Before the Introduction)
Paratextual Materials within the Tales
The Tales and Post-Tales Paratextual Materials (Materials Appearing at the End of the Collections)
The Tales
Chapter 3. Palestinian Women and the Preservation of Memory in Palestinian Folktales
Mother - Daughter Narrative
Mother - Son Narrative
Siblings' Narrative
Sexual Awakening
Marriage
Chapter 4. Cultural Identity and Sites of Memory in Palestinian Folktales
Peasantry as a Site of Memory and Identity
Recreating the Homeland
Peasantry and Collective Identity
Language and Folk Religion in Society, Environment and Universe Groups of Folktales
Food and Memory
Prospective Memory
Sensuous Memory
Food and Women: Agents of Memory
Final Reflections
Bibliography
Appendix 1 - Interview with Dr Sharif Kanaana
Appendix 2 - Table of Footnotes
Appendix 3 - Summaries of Tales in Chapter Three
Appendix 4 - "The Old Woman and Her Cat" Al-? juz w al-bis and "Dunglet" Ba ? irun
Appendix 5 - Summaries of Tales in Chapter Four