Longing to Belong: The Quest for Home in Suzan Abulhawa's The Blue Between Sky and Water (2015)

Abstract

This paper examines the quest for home and belonging of Palestinians and their descendants in various spatialities and the issue of in-between-ness as it is depicted in Susan Abulhawa’s The Blue Between Sky and Water (2015). Via adopting a geocritical spatial theoretical framework, this article sheds light on how Arab-Americans, namely Palestinian immigrants, realize their identity in diaspora and manage to establish their unique homes despite the senses of non-belonging and homelessness. The paper investigates some of the novel’s characters, particularly Nur, and her journey of self-discovery and belonging. In the novel, Nur is relentlessly out of place as she is caught between the binaries of the East and the West amidst a topophobic/philic reality. Thus, this paper illustrates how Abulhawa displays the struggle of finding home and belonging for Palestinians and their offspring outside of the homeland.

Keywords: Arab-Americans, Belonging, Diaspora, Homelessness, Topophobia/philia

Highlights

• Spatiality affects Arab-American identity and belonging in contemporary Arab-American literature.
• Abulhawa's The Blue Between Sky and Water displays how space shapes and alters the senses of home and belonging for Palestinians and their offspring.
• The novel emphasizes the idea that the Palestinian diaspora encounter topophobic/philic situations in the liminal spaces of the in-between.
• Being out of place is the predicament of most Palestinian-Americans.
• Abulhawa's The Blue Between Sky and Water suggests that the notion of Thirdspace goes beyond the fixity of dualism and binaries and opens up paths for in-between situations.