The Making Stage of the Modern Palestinian Arabic Novel in the Experiences of the udabāʾ Khalīl Baydas (1874–1949) and Iskandar al-Khūri al-BeitJāli (1890–1973)

Abstract

AbstractIn 1946, the first Palestinian book fair took place at the Arab Orthodox Union Club in Jerusalem. What lay behind this event was a process that paralleled the political life revolving around the formation of local nationalism, a complex process of cultural and literary development within the Arab Nahda (‘Awakening’ or Renaissance) movement in which the Palestinians left their imprint through the press, literature, translation and other cultural fields. This chapter discusses the cultural environment of Khalīl Baydas and Iskandar al-Khūrī al-BeitJālī who initiated the modern Palestinian Arabic novel, both publishing in 1920. It addresses the Palestinian Nahda and the Russian educational enterprise as the formative context of these two authors and propose that Khalīl Baydas should be recognised as the architect of Palestinian literary realism.