The announcement by the "Global Palestine Literature Prize" concerning the launch of an international campaign to read the novel "The Tantouria" by the late author Radwa Ashour in three languages—Arabic, English, and Persian—coincides with the ongoing genocide committed by the Israeli army in Gaza since October 7. This act revives the memory of the atrocities committed by Zionism, including the massacres in Tantoura and other Palestinian territories.
In her significant narrative, Radwa Ashour tells the story of a Palestinian family that was uprooted from their land in Tantoura village by the "Haganah" gangs. Through the unfolding events, she chronicles the journey of this family from 1947, the year before the Nakba and the establishment of Israel, to 2000, including the historical occurrences that accompanied it.
The novel resuscitates many historical events and facts similar to the current war in Gaza and other Palestinian cities. The chapters of this story are nearly documentary, documenting most of the historical phases experienced by four generations. Woven within are numerous references to the harsh life in the refugee camps, while the narrative oscillates between the present and the past, moving us alongside a crowd of details from the pre-Nakba era to the subsequent stages, up until the dawn of the new millennium and beyond.
"The Tantouria" immerses readers in themes largely revolving around resistance and survival, challenging the reality of displacement and killing practices—practices that the usurping entity has never ceased. These practices have forced us to experience deeply horrific realities and to witness appalling images of massacres discussed in "The Tantouria," including documented incidents such as the "Tantoura massacre," the "Sabra and Shatila massacre," and the ordeal of the children’s school shelter in "Sidon."
Archive images from the Israeli archives show the expulsion and displacement of the inhabitants of Tantoura under armed force (Al Jazeera)
Recording and Documentation
The village of "Tantoura" has become a witness to the Nakba and the subsequent happenings through "Ruqayya," the protagonist of "The Tantouria" and the representation of the Palestinian woman's engagement with the everyday realities of refuge and holding onto resistance, even if through the determination to have more children. Throughout its multifaceted chapters, the novel chronicles places, documents dates and individuals, and affirms the events witnessed by reality, despite occasionally approaching a rhetorical stance before the beauty of narration immediately rescues it from the pitfalls of directness.
Although Ruqayya is the primary narrator in "The Tantouria," at times, another narrator appears, specifically when Ruqayya recounts her own story using the third person. Ashour explains that Ruqayya usually utilizes the first-person form, but occasionally she refers to herself in the third-person as if she is talking about someone else. This does not mean the narrative shifts to another narrator, but rather reflects the moments when Ruqayya looks back on earlier stages of her life.
Radwa Ashour emphasizes that "The Tantouria" is Ruqayya's story from beginning to end, although it incorporates aspects of what she heard from others. In an interview, Ashour highlighted that "Ruqayya is not the sole heroine in the traditional sense, as everyone is a hero, and all are refugees; each has their own story." She mentions that Ruqayya lived in Tantoura during her childhood and early adolescence and was engaged to a young man from the neighboring village of "Ein Ghazal" before the Zionist gang uprooted their community. Ruqayya's life extends beyond the age of 70, finding herself writing the saga of three generations: parents, children, and grandchildren.
The Background Narrator
Ruqayya continues the narrative while Ashour herself sits behind a desk, in a room in Egypt, then takes us to those places, describing events, people, customs, traditions, and songs with precision, convincing us that Ruqayya wrote "The Tantouria," that long-exiled Palestinian woman.
The author paints in "The Tantouria" the history of a country, depicting the blood of massacres, the dispersion of youth, their wreckage, and the dreams that haunted them.
Did Ruqayya encapsulate that story? A woman waiting at the train station, who, while waiting, lived a complete life, then one day sat down to her notebook to convey those events to us, after wondering: What does Ruqayya wait for? That Palestinian refugee, expelled southward to Lebanon following the Tantoura massacre in 1948, then moved to Beirut and lived there until 1982, only to witness the Sabra and Shatila massacre afterward.
Final Scene
The story begins with that moving scene when Ruqayya receives a phone call from her friend "Wissal" after years of separation, upon which Ruqayya bursts into tears she had stored up over the years since the Nakba, unable to utter a single letter after the word "Wissal."
Israeli archival photos depict Jewish gang members transferring village residents to Jenin and Tulkarem, preventing their return after committing the Tantoura massacre (Al Jazeera)
As one delves further into the novel, one can’t help but wonder: How can a single novel encompass all that "The Tantouria" contains? How does the author imagine a woman without complete education still carrying a nation, running with it, and guarding it with memories and diaries she began to commit to after her son's insistence she do so?
Ashour justifies this apparent immersion into the narrative by clarifying that Ruqayya did not write "The Tantouria"; rather, it is Ashour who penned a novel about its main character, an imaginative woman trying to narrate her story by writing, recounting, reflecting, and sometimes reminiscing.
The narrative is a blend of the fictional and the historical facts: Ruqayya, her parents, siblings, husband, and children are fictitious characters, but the massacre, forced expulsion, refuge in Lebanon, life in the camps, and the invasion of Lebanon are documented events. Personal history of particular characters crafted by imagination intertwines with the collective history of Palestinians, striving to form an image embodying the general through the particular, making it indicative of the larger story.
Archive photos from the Israeli archives show the Zionist gangs preventing the inhabitants of Tantoura from returning to their village after the massacre (Al Jazeera)
Although Ashour previously stated she was against "writing from the outside," asserting that writing is finally about knowledge beyond mere information, and involves human experiences, expertise, acquaintance with the subject, and overall depth of knowledge. She references her own famous Granada Trilogy, explaining her understanding of the experience of defeat and subjugation, of attempting escape through confrontation and resistance, which are the core of the narrative and its subject matter. Thus, to craft a narrative of Granada within the confines of realism, she had to familiarize herself with the place and its people, achieved through research while the imagination was responsible for crafting scenes, plot twists, characters, and the language conveying it all.
With regard to the Palestinian subject, she affirms having lived with numerous Palestinians, some of whom are kin as her husband (poet Mourid Barghouti) is Palestinian. This association allowed her to convey a portion of the Palestinian experience. For Tantoura—a village occupied in 1948 and hence far removed from her husband's experience in the West Bank occupied in 1967—she had to learn about its geography, the reality of its people, what befell them during the attack on their village, and their fates after displacement. Sometimes, an author is obliged to research, read extensively, and complement their knowledge gaps, which is what she did for "The Tantouria."
Before Uprooting
"Ruqayya" never forgets the last night before uprooting when her father shared his most cherished memories. For the first time, she looked into his eyes and discovered his handsomeness. The following morning brought the catastrophe, as sons, mothers, and the elderly were herded like sheep, with no knowledge of where the men were taken. Hundreds of women, children, and the elderly were crammed into trucks, and then "Ruqayya" screamed, pulling at her mother's arm, pointing to a pile of corpses. Thus begins the tale.
Israeli archival photos show the Zionist gangs preventing the inhabitants of Tantoura from returning to their village after the massacre (Al Jazeera)
The tale continues with migration to the nearby town of Al-Fureidis, then to Hebron, through the first challenging months of internal displacement in the homeland, leading to the decision to join Abu Al-Amin's family in Sidon, which they reached at the beginning of the following year. Abu Al-Amin's wife, Ruqayya, upon her mother's passing, was given the key to the house and, like her mother before her, wore it around her neck continuously, a practice she continued.
Throughout the novel, one observes how the people in the Ain Al-Hilweh camp responded on the first day of the Six-Day War of June 1967 with their house keys, IDs, and property deeds in hand, ready.
Final Scene
Finally, Ruqayya, along with her companions from the refugee camp, embarks on a trip to the border separating Lebanon from Palestine. The border fence does not prevent her from speaking to a young woman and an elder from Tantoura. She is shocked when her son Hassan and his family, along with baby Ruqayya born four months ago, surprise her. Ruqayya, now aged, holds her granddaughter, passing her through the wires and draping the house key lanyard from her neck around the infant's—a key to a home that no longer stands.
