Between private and collective in new generation Palestinian literature: Akram Musallam as a test case

The article examines new generation Palestinian writing in the West Bank, focusing on the ongoing tension between the private and the collective dimensions in literary works there. The works of Palestinian writer of Ramallah, Akram Musallam (b. 1971), serve as test case. The article shows that Musallam's novels preserve a connection to the Palestinian problem and the national-political life on one hand, and create meanings beyond time and place limited by this connection, on the other. The tension between the private and the collective is not only well reflected in Musallam's writings, but in fact constitutes their main pivot and it is embodied in an original and unique inner thematic and stylistic struggle within his writings. Musallam's works serve as an example of the fact that despite recent trends to forsake the collective and focus on the private, Palestinian literature almost always relates, either directly or indirectly, either through creative or less creative means, to collective Palestinian issues.