Impact of the Algerian Novel on Palestinian Novel: The Cases of Ahlam Mustaghnami and Yousef el-Aileh

This study examined the literary interrelationships among the writers of the Arab peoples and extent of reflection of historical and political similarity on their arts and literatures. In addition, the study investigated the extent to which Palestinian novel kept abreast of its counterpart in the Arab world and the extent of the Palestinian’s ability to keep abreast of the cultural movement in the Arab arena despite the odds, resulting from the Israeli occupation’s siege and suppression of thought and culture. This study fell into an introduction, four chapters and a conclusion. In the introduction, the researcher highlighted the significance of mutual influence/ impact. Then she moved to justify her choice of this subject and limiting her focus to Algeria and Palestine and Ahlam Mustaghnami and Yousef el-Aileh in particular. The introduction ended with a survey of the methodology of the research, its contents and review of literature. In chapter one, the researcher tackled Thakirat al-Jasad. She conducted a study and analysis of the work in an attempt to arrive at the significance of memory and body. She also investigated the linguistic and the significant inter relationship between the title and the text. Then she moved to Ghazal e-Thakira to apply the aforementioned and monitor the extent of intertextuality between the two titles in terms of structure, components and meaning. Chapter two dwelt on the narration techniques and narrative playing. The researcher addressed the narration techniques as the second station of mutual influence between the two writers. The researcher then moved to the structural forms of Mustaghnami’s novels, in terms of number of pages, size of each chapter and the relationship between one chapter and the one following it. Then she moved to examine the same elements in el-Aileh’s novels. Chapter three dwelt on both Arab and Palestinian novels which employed the second personal pronoun in narration and practiced narrative playing. Mustaghnami is a case in point. The researcher, in this context, raised the question of whether she read Arab novelists at first hand and accordingly was influenced by their styles of writing or she was only influenced by French literature. The researcher also examined narrative playing in Mustaghnami’s works and their impact on el-Aileh’s works. Of these was the writer’s similitude with the heroes of his/her novel or lack of it, extent of similarity and differences in each one’s novels and degree of self-interrelationship. In chapter three, the researcher examined the time structure in the two writers’ novels, features of time play in each, the impact of that on the psyche of the narrator and the characters. In chapter four, the researcher elaborated on the setting structure in Mustaghnami’s and el-Aileh’s novels. In this context, the researcher studied the presence and absence of the place in each of the novel’s chapters and the significance of that presence or absence. The researcher also highlighted the symbolism of woman and its relationship with the city, strongly present in the two writers’ works and in Mahmoud Darwish’s poems before them. It’s worth noting that Darwish used the woman as a symbol of the city. In the conclusion, the researcher summed up the results of her investigation focusing on where Mustaghnami and el-Aileh crossed and met in their works. She also sought to answer whether the nature of influence was negative or positive. In her study, the researcher depended on modern theories of criticism which examined elements of the novel. She also employed intertextuality and mutual influence theory. She applied these theories in her study of the two writers’ works starting with the influence of the writer and moving to the works of the influenced.