Review: The Folktales of Palestine: Cultural Identity, Memory and the Politics of Storytelling, by Farah Aboubakr

One could say that Farah Aboubakr's book The Folktales of Palestine: Cultural Identity, Memory and the Politics of Storytelling is yet another instance of the fallout from the Nakba. Clearly the Aboubakr family is part of the Palestinian diaspora. In her introduction, the author writes of a childhood lived constantly on the move but never in Palestine. Yet she knew she was Palestinian and felt nostalgia for the place she had not seen because of the folktales her mother used to tell in Palestinian colloquial Arabic. For her, these oral tales embodied Palestine. Her book, originally a PhD thesis at the University of Manchester, is an analysis of cultural...