Abstract

This study examined how Susan Abulhawa’s Mornings in Jenin employs nostalgia and collective memory as narrative devices in constructing Palestinian identity and deconstructing dominant historical narratives. It drew on the postcolonial framework, merging Svetlana Boym’s typology of nostalgia, Edward Said’s Orientalism, Homi Bhabha’s hybridity, and Frantz Fanon’s resistance to make sense of the novel’s narrative of displacement of the family of Abulhija following the 1948 Nakba. The study advanced a new model of nostalgia–postmemory that brings together Boym’s restorative and reflective nostalgia and the Palestinian concept of sumud (steadfastness) to place nostalgia as a resistive practice against cultural erasure. In the characters of Yehya, whose return to Ein Hod is an exercise in restorative nostalgia, and Amal, whose memories are a reflection of hybrid identity, the novel resists Orientalist misrepresentations. The olive tree “Old Lady” signifies rootedness, linked to contemporary Palestinian resistance, such as olive harvest celebrations. Methodologically, the research undertakes textual analysis, rooted in Hirsch’s postmemory theory, to illustrate how intergenerational memory maintains identity. The findings emphasized nostalgia and memory as interactive processes reclaiming narrative power, invoking reference to diaspora studies, such as Syrian and Rohingya ones. The study acknowledged constraints, such as its attention to one text, and suggested comparative studies for the future. Through its connection of literary themes with cultural preservation strategies like digital archiving, it positioned Mornings in Jenin as a Palestinian resilience model, adding to postcolonial scholarship and cultural survival studies in the face of ongoing displacement.