Asylum literature or exile? .. The new wave of writing after the Arab Spring

Aref Hamza-Germany

Recently, in the division of literature, the term asylum literature, which is intended for the creation of writers who fled their countries because of war or arrest and became in the countries of asylum, has emerged many studies, including a study entitled "Syrian asylum literature" (Hermon Center for Studies), which calls into question the health This term or not.

Although Arab literature has witnessed many divisions that may not pay attention to other international literature such as Diaspora literature, exile literature, prison literature and feminist literature, this division raises a serious question: does the literature of resorting to exile literature and to some extent belong to the diaspora literature?

The Syrian experience does not set a precedent for asylum literature. The Palestinian experience was preceded by the Palestinian experience of Westernization and diaspora. However, this term starts from this experience now with the large wave of Arab refugees that accompanied the Arab Spring.

The term was not given to literature written by Iraqi writers after hundreds of them fled the regime of Saddam Hussein and wrote novels, poetry and fiction collections outside Iraq. Critical studies did not classify this writing in asylum literature, but critics viewed it as part of Iraqi literature in exile. .

Waiting for the miracle
Syrian novelist and critic Haitham Hussein arrived as a refugee in Britain in 2014 and experienced that bitter experience when a refugee feels an emergency on his new place and is looking for ways to reconcile with himself and his place.

Literature was the best way to understand the self and place together and discover for oneself and the other. Hussein says that the refugee writer inferred through literature "to the beginning of the path, which may ease the worsening sense of loss and disengagement from his place and his past and society and search for a threshold to enter the folds of the new society, if through the idea of ​​integration Imagination or adaptation and adaptation and acquiescence to the developments that he finds himself trapped. "

Asked by Hussein about the difference between asylum and exile, he explained to Al Jazeera Net that he finds that "the exile is more receptive to his situation, which he strives to understand and assimilate, while the refugee is still growing up or thinking that he does not feel that this is a temporary emergency phase or that what he is going through and is living through a dream or a nightmare. From him at a turn and that the miracle of what might happen may return him to his desired country. "

The pain of exile and the conquest of asylum
"Conquering the exile is more calm than conquering asylum," Hussein said. "He is in the midst of many conflicts he is supposed to have overcome earlier. The refugee is sensitive to any detail and when he becomes more understanding of his new reality, he moves towards exile and comes closer to him." .. painful frosting exile and asylum Jahimi in turn and literature in its comprehensive sense accommodates both terms overlapping, which do not have any conflict.

Syrian novelist Sanaa Aoun believes that a new statement must be added to the statement of the late Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani, in the words of one of his heroes in his sad story, the land of the sad orange "The refugee must always prove that he is a human being" reinforced by saying that "the writer who had to resort to another country He always proves that he is a writer first and that his artistic literary product is literature first, an art in the end, away from classifications and divisions, from politics, wars, revolutions, tyranny, oppression and even just causes.

The bias of art
Aoun's many labels and divisions of literature are labels that frame literature and art and that they are far from these divisions that keep us away from the role of true aesthetic literature by saying that "the most important bias must be towards the art of this writing. And above any geography. "

Aoun, who arrived in Norway as a refugee since 2016, believes that there is a confusion in terms and designations, "legally and legally there are cases of asylum. We agree on its art. "

In her view, Aoun relies on literary works by writers who were refugees, but she is at the heart of world literature, adding to the island the names and examples of them, including the Afghan writer Khalid Hosseini, author of "A Thousand Sunshine" and "Kite Runner", Bertoldo Brecht and Isabel Allende, among others. Although some of these writers write in English as a global literature does not necessarily belong to the literature of asylum.

Privacy or literature exile?
Asked about the categorization of what he and his colleagues, who have become in different exile, Hussein said: "Perhaps the literature produced by the refugees will later fall into a framework, and I find that it will be specialized in features that preserve the privacy of what he has, and keep him close to the exile or exile, but not To identify with him or hide under his broad title. "

Hussein finds that asylum itself will turn into a trend in contemporary literature "because it has become a pressing global issue, and there are millions of refugees around the world everywhere" wondering if there is a refugee team and a realistic representation of them, why would there be no literature for refugees?

Sana Aoun, the author of the fictional collection where the compass points out, finds all this literature "for those who have left their countries or were forced to do so in my opinion in the context of exile literature. What makes exile literature is primarily spatial alienation and the questions and ideas generated by that alienation." In terms of language, lifestyle and living on the margins of the host culture. "

As for his personal experience when he wrote his latest book "No one may stay," Hussein told Al Jazeera Net that he tried to understand himself and his new surroundings and sought to dismantle the plight of asylum he went through, where he found that writing helped him discover different aspects of reality.

"I felt more that I became a global citizen who triumphed over the causes of others as well as his cause. I felt indifference towards the tragedies of others and the other refugees from faraway places in the world no longer had numbers, news or issues far from my interest, I approached them and got to know them, which helped me get closer." Of self. "