SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Postcolonial and literary scholars have discussed colonialism as the invasion of the home. This notion is something that resonates within the Israel and Palestine context, especially with a large Palestinian population being exiled outside the country. This essay will use the notion of the home to explore how the poem "In Jerusalem" is a reaction of the poet Tamim al-Barghouti in seeing his father's hometown for the first time. It will investigate how the poet navigates within the Arab literary traditions as a way to claim back the home from where his father was previously exiled. The discussion is led by the poem's close reading which considers the poem itself as a reconstruction of the home (Jerusalem) in absence of the poet's contact with it.