Palestinian Diaspora and Feminine Identity in Suheir Hammad's Poetry As Reflected in the Conflict between Alienation and Integration

Document Type : Original Article

Author

a lecturer in the English Department, Faculty of Arts, Zagazig University.

Abstract

Suheir Hammad is a Palestinian American poet, playwright, actor, and political activist. Though Hammad has been raised and educated in America, she has retained her Arabic identity. This dual life brings about a conflict between a feeling of alienation, on the one hand, and a powerful sense of integration, on the other. Hammad articulates this conflict in her writings from a feminist perspective by zeroing in on the misery of Palestinian women, black women, and women of ethnic minorities in general. The present paper highlights the conflict between alienation and integration on the level of Suheir Hammad the woman using as evidence her views and opinions expressed in some of her interviews, essays, and other prose writings, besides the views of various critics and scholars. On the level of Suheir Hammad the woman poet, the study traces her feminist approach to the conflict through her poetry.