Author Bashir Abu-Manneh launches his new book, The Palestinian Novel: from 1948 to the Present, the first study in English to chart the development of the Palestinian novel in exile and under occupation from 1948 onwards. The author will be in conversation with Razia Iqbal.

The discussion will focus on four major Palestinian novelists; Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, Ghassan Kanafani (pictured above), Emile Habibi and Sahar Khalifeh. In his book, Abu-Manneh connects the Palestinian novel to Palestinian history and politics, looking at the novels in the context of the Palestinian struggle for justice and freedom. He chronicles the unfolding of the Palestinian novel and looks at how Palestinian writers articulate humanism, self-sacrifice and self-realization. Literary accounts of the Palestinian revolt are also examined, and the discussion will look at the challenges raised by the question of Palestine, both in the rise of the Palestinian revolt and its decline and fragmentation in Oslo. In Abu-Manneh’s critical assessment of Palestinian writing, questions of struggle and self-determination take centre stage.

Bashir Abu-Manneh is Lecturer in Postcolonial Literature and Director of the Centre for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies at the University of Kent. He is the author of Fiction of the New Statesman, 1913–1939 (2011). His current project is an edited collection of articles about Edward Said as theorist and public intellectual for Cambridge University. He is a regular contributor to Jacobin magazine.

Razia Iqbal is a BBC broadcaster and journalist. As a Special Correspondent she has covered a variety of domestic and foreign stories for BBC News and presenter of books and arts programmes on News Channel and BBC World. She is Presenter on World Service Radio’s flagship programme, Newshour.

Image details: Photograph of Palestinian writer and activist, Ghassan Kanafani (1936 -1972). This image was obtained from http://www.al-akhbar.com/files/images/p12_20070707_pic1.full.jpg