The Storming of Images in Colonial Times: A Cultural Reading in the Novel (Jerusalem is Free) by Aqil Abu Al-Shaar
Ghassan Abd Al-Khaliq, Department of Arabic Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts and Arts, Philadelphia University, Amman, Jordan.
Abstract
This research aims at shedding light on a novelist and novel that were about to be forgotten despite their high literary merit. Aqil Abu-Alshaar, the author of “Jerusalem, Free”, deserves to be acknowledged as a pioneer of the Arab novel in Palestine, Jordan and the Arab world. Moreover, the novel has enough aspects that qualify it to be studied culturally and from a post-colonial perspective.
Although the researcher exerted the utmost efforts to introduce the no novelist to readers and to explain how the novel, after strenuous efforts, was discovered in Paris National Library, he also exerted no less efforts to reveal the stereotypical images that abound in the novel besides analyzing the characters and the setting in the novel and their significance.
In addition, the researcher did not spare any chance to effectively use the tools of cultural criticism, in general, and post-colonialism, in particular. Therefore, he gave special attention to the political context of the texts, whether explicit or implicit and shed light on the cultural and moral preconceptions embedded in the stereotypical images besides exposing some mechanisms of dominance like those entailing a master / slave construction.
Keywords: Jerusalem Free, Aqil ABu-Alshaar, Stereotypess.