Apprehension of Colonial Modernity: Radwa Ashour’sGranada Trilogyand the Retrieval of Past Hope

Abstract

This essay studies theGranada Trilogyby Egyptian writer Radwa Ashour, a novel that tells of the growing constraints on and eventual expulsion of the Arabs during the Spanish Inquisition across five generations of an Andalusian family. In linking this story to that of the Palestinians in the twentieth century and beyond, Ashour ascertains a logic of modernity in which thelongue duréegoverns the experience of time’s passage, and peoples disconnected by long intervals of chronological time bear an intimate affinity by virtue of their common subjugation. Far from being merely a reflection of her despondency over the inability to change this historical dynamic, theGranada Trilogysuggests that the hopefulness animating these refugees is a revolutionary resource with which to apprise present actors of the multiple possible futures that remain alive in the present.