With science fiction … it's Palestine in 2048

One hundred years after the Nakba, what will Palestine look like? This problem led 12 Palestinian writers to imagine Palestine in 2048 by creating science fiction.

Elaf from Beirut: Basma Ghalayini has collected a collection of science fiction books, written by 12 Palestinian novelists, in a book, Palestine + 100, motivated by the uniqueness of these books, because the author's quality in science fiction is rare among Palestinian writers, according to Ghalayini in the introduction of the book. The difficult nature of Palestinian life makes science fiction one of the manifestations of luxury that the rigors of everyday life can not bear.

Imagined image
Twelve Palestinian writers have painted a possible picture of their country by 2048, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Nakba, which has displaced more than 700,000 Palestinians out of Palestine. This incident in the Occupied Territories is believed to be the first element of what can form a base upon which many science fiction stories are based.

The novels that have spoken of Palestine in the book range from the future representation of the writer Majd Khayyal to the Arab-Palestinian conflict, where he finds the solution to two parallel worlds occupying a single geographical space, at the same time. imagination of the writer Salim Haddad and the idea of ​​a digital return to the roots. Mazen Maarouf's novel, winner of the Man Booker World Prize, begins the day after an attack in 2037, told by the last surviving Palestinian citizen, describing his body deformed by radiation … as he said. Imagined storing it in a shop window because it's not just possible to kill it.

Luxury Editor
Salim Haddad, who had previously written a novel titled "Singing Birds" to commemorate the writer Muhannad Younis who was killed in 2017, shares Ghalayini's view. He says that Palestinian writers do not usually write about the future.

Everyone expects their writings to document what is happening on the ground, but at the same time thinks that Palestine is fertile ground for the ideas that writers can use to build narratives of science-fiction, thanks to the thorny subjects that preoccupy them, like the question of the past. The present, the collective memory and the constant search in their thought of an alternative possibility of their life. In writing his story, he found a free way to delve into current problems.

A means of badysis and conclusion
Salma al-Dabbagh wrote about clbad discrimination among citizens. In his novel Insa, Dr. Scott, I imagined a city where citizens would be discriminated against because of the ethnic composition of their faces.

Al-Dabbagh, who previously only wrote about the past, thinking that only past stories can find light, where the situation is slightly better than the present, says that writing about the future that I recently discovered mean to her that she can now conclude through a series of observations, the craziness of the situation. And go to new horizons.

Elaph prepared this report for the Guardian. Original published on:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jul/25/what-will-palestine-be-like-in-2048-writers-turn-to-sci-f-for-the-answer