‘Keys to Paradise’: Libraries, Literature, and Literacy in Palestine

Despite the devastating effects of 1948 ‘Nakba' (catastrophe) on Palestinian cultural life, writers insist significance libraries and wider book culture contribute to ongoing efforts retrieve a continually besieged heritage. Beginning with an emblematic library scene in Isabella Hammad's The Parisian (2019) before tracking ways which modernity colonialism have been negotiated Khalidi Library Jerusalem; Ibrahim Nasrallah’s novel Time White Horses (2007/2016); memoirs by Jabra (The First Well, 1987/2012), Fadwa Tuqan (A Mountainous Journey, 1985/1990), Ghada Karmi (In Search Fatima: A Story, 2002), this article argues that creative literature sheds light who has (and had) access Palestine/Israel worldly axes conceived.