The Truman, Memory and Exile in The Parisian by Isabella Hammad

Abstract

 This paper discusses themes of memory, exile, and hybridity in the light of postcolonial theory in Isabella Hammad's The Parisian (2019), drawing particular attention to the works of Homi Bhabha and Edward Said for theoretical insight. The essay investigates the ways in which the novel's protagonist, Midhat Kamal, navigates this labyrinthine question about his identity, which was unshackled in tussles between a never-rooted life of exile, the loss of any core, and crossfires between the Palestinian ethnic being and colonial France. This article will look at how Midhat's identity is modified according to the cultural forces at play in his confrontations with both Palestinian and Western spaces, drawing on Bhabha's ideas of hybridity and the "Third Space.". This paper further furthers Said's argument of exile as traumatic and formative in exploring the way in which memories of Palestine frame and complicate Midhat's integration into France's colonial society. The presentation represents how The Parisian contributes to the postcolonial discourse in the perspective of representing the complexity of Palestinian identity in diaspora, together with insight into larger dynamics of colonialism, cultural memory, and belonging