Olive trees, radio music, tattoed waistlines, Palestine and a rare species of wisdom: An Interview with Nathalie Handal

by Elizabeth Nunez, Chair of PEN American Open Book Program 

SHORTLISTED FOR
THE AGNES LYNCH STARETT POETY PRIZE/ PITT POETRY SERIES 

Who were your most important poetic influences? What writers do you continuously find yourself re-reading? 

Different authors have influenced at different moments of my life, but some of the authors whom I have continuously returned to over the years are Beckett, Garcia Márquez, Neruda, Akhmatova, Baudelaire and Eliot. 

What inspires or influences your writing? What was your inspiration for The Lives of Rain?

     To me, the world is a poem, a poem I keep writing and re-writing. All that I observe, that I experience, filters itself into words. So much inspires me, the butterfly on the windowsill about to take flight, the gentle dance of the water, the different shapes of the grey-blue mist, the lover looking for his shadow, the child looking for her mother. I wanted Lives to be a testament of my Palestinian exile and dislocation, my Diasporic experience—and my numerous cultural, historical and literary influences. I imagined a book that had a wide range of tonalities, musicality and poetic tensions.  But mostly, I wanted the poems to transmit the suffering that we endure and which we consciously or unconsciously inflict on our close and wider community, and the vulnerability of the human condition. I wanted the poems to convey resistance and hope.

Do you identify yourself as a hyphenated writer, that is, as an Arab-American writer? Is there such a thing as Arab-American literature?

I consider myself as a writer and I often struggle with set definitions, labels and boxes many tend to put writers in. However, if one were to refer to me as an Arab-American that would be fine so long as they understood that I could also be referred to as a Palestinian, American, French, and Latina. I am currently finishing a book on Arab- American and Anglo-Arab Diaspora Literature, forthcoming Fall 2005-Winter 2006, and many people will be surprised at the wealth of our literature. Since Gibran and the Mahjar (immigrant) poets, we have had more than an hundred years of great literature, but I believe that our more productive years are yet to come. The last years have fostered tremendous changes. There are more Arab-American authors and they are writing in all genres. I believe Arab-American and Anglo-Arab literature will flourish into a rich and important literature. Writers of Arab origin will also be important literary figures in their respective countries.                            (over)

What are your thoughts on Arab-American writing in relation to ethnic American literature today, to the general American literary scene, to Arabic literature and to the Arab world?

Although one can observe similarities, stylistically and thematically, within the body of works produced by Arab-American authors, there is also a wide diversity at all levels. Arab-American literature is part of the general American literary scene as our works contribute to the diversity and richness of American literature. In relation to Arabic literature and the Arab world, I do not think we can be entirely included as part of Arabic literature since we are of English expression, but I also do not think we should be entirely excluded. There should be a place for us in the literary sphere of our respective countries of origin. For instance, Palestinian-American authors are an extension of Palestinian literature, Lebanese-American authors of Lebanese literature and so forth.

Languages obviously play an important role in your writing—Arabic, French, Spanish and other languages. Can you tell us more about the influence of multiple languages on your work?

Words evoke all sorts of memories and images. Languages take you to different places and times. I grew up with many different languages since I experienced

multiple displacements and so, of course, languages, rhythms, tonalities, color and expressions have played an important role in my imagination, consciousness and subconscious. Arabic, French, Spanish, English live inside of my body, my mind and move me in ways that remain mysterious to me.

What do you want readers to take away from the experience of reading Lives?

Certainly, it’s my hope that readers will take more than one thing, but primarily

I hope that they will travel into the desolation of wars, the disquietude and ironies of displacement, the dangers and ecstasy of the unknown, while also feeling free to respond to the poems on a mysterious and sensual level. After all, one of the things that makes poetry so transcendent is that it takes readers to different lyrical and silent spaces, different tragic and imaginary spheres.  Poetry allows readers to discover various ways of experiencing the inner and outer world of others and of themselves by startling and astounding them with their own responses, whether through the connections and associations they make or in the ways their reactions reveal their innermost thoughts and challenge them.

Nathalie Handal:   nathaliehandal.com