Written from Exile

The paper examines the rendering of Sabra and Shatila massacre  through a comparative reading of Genet's essay "Four hours In Shatila" (1982), Fisk's "Terrorists" (1982) and Chomsky's Fateful Triangle (1983) using the tools presented by Edward Said concerning the issues of representation and the rule of the intellectual. It will shed light on the role of these intellectuals with respect to challenging received ideas and telling missing narratives, and the extent to which each of them succeeded in this role. The study will, furthermore, point out the aspects of similarity and difference between the three texts as well as the reasons behind this. In addition, it will try to detect whether certain aspects about the massacre were overshadowed and whether the cause behind this is an ideological/political stance on the part of the writer or a mere constraint imposed by the mode and circumstances of writing. This paper will also attempt at discovering if the topic discussed necessitates recourse to certain techniques and if this is common to the three writers. Finally, it will explore whether a compassionate representation necessarily entails a comprehensive representation, or in other words: to what extent is the Sabra and Shatila massacre capturable?