Ambivalence, division, and critique

The collaborator in British Palestinian political thrillers

Bibliographic Data

ID2179731
AuthorsIsabelle Hesse
Year2024
Volume60
Issue1
Pages15-27
Publication date2024-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Postcolonial Writing (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1744-9855 • E-ISSN: 1744-9863
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17449855.2023.2288025
OpenAlexW4389622412
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited16

This article examines the use of the collaborator as a literary figure and a critical tool in Mischa Hiller's Shake Off and Ahmed Masoud's Vanished: The Mysterious Disappearance of Mustafa Ouda. I argue that Hiller's and Masoud's political thrillers reclaim the collaborator as a figure of division and ambivalence, which facilitates engagement with local subtleties. These include the issue of collaboration and its implications for individuals as well as the Palestinian national struggle; the straightforward path from resistance to liberation and statehood; and the idea of a unified Palestinian ideology to which Palestinians, including Palestinian authors in the diaspora, need to be loyal. In this sense, Hiller's and Masoud's works offer important insights into wider trends in Palestinian writing, including an emphasis on non-heroic and ordinary characters, while using the political thriller, as a popular anglophone genre, to bring awareness of the Palestinian cause, in all its ambivalence and complexity

Aesthetics · Ambivalence · Art · Diaspora · Ideology · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Resistance (ecology · Sociology · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts · Middle East Politics and Society · Psychology · Gender Studies · Law

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