Like
Seeds
historical
fiction
Syracuse
University
Press
1998
English
Available
An Interview with Shaw Dallal
By Ray Hanania
Arab American literature usually comes in one packaged form: dry, statistically correct, dissertations on Politics that any career academic would love to read.
But, most Americans steer clear of these heavy-doses of political argumentation and debates.
The typical American doesn't get the opportunity to read the non-political story of the Palestinians and the Arab World, because it is rare and difficult to find.
But I recently discovered through acquaintances, a talented Palestinian man, Shaw Dallal, who has written a novel that offers in a marvelously fresh way the tragedy of the Palestinian people. It's achievement is that it presents, maybe for the first time, the story of the Palestinians in a human way.
Using the Novel as his vehicle, founded on historical facts, Dallal tells the story of a Palestinian in a way that Americans would be interested to read.
Dallal points out that the Arab World has made a major contribution over the generations to World Literature and that true literature exists and is only now making its way into the United States.
"Arab American literature is little emphasized in the United States which is very unfortunate because the Arabs have a very rich heritage in literature," Dallal notes.
"In fact, they are probably the fathers of the novel as we know it today. The Arabian Nights is a contribution they made to world literature from which even Shakespeare has borrowed heavily."
It is still new, Dallal points out.
"Arab American literature is really in its infancy in the United States," he explains, noting that most Arab American writing has been in the form of political discussions and academically focused.
"For the most part, Arab Americans have concentrated on political writings. Very few Arab Americans have indulged themselves in producing Arab literature," he observes.
"Scattered like Seeds could be a pioneering experiment, because it literally tells the story from a literary perspective of the agony of an Arab American who has one foot in the United States and another in his native lands and culture. Writing this from a literary point of view could be a very revealing experiment."
Telling a story from this literary point of view presents a more human story and it therefore can evoke a greater response from American readers who are turned off by politics.
One observer wrote of Dallal's book, "Scattered Like Seeds puts a human face on the tragedy which has befallen the Palestinian people in our time. This intimate and touching story brings to the American reader a side of the Middle East conflict which Americans long overlooked."
Dallal agrees that when talking to Americans, it is more potent to talk to them in human terms rather than in political terms.
"That is exactly what I have tried to do with this novel," he says.
"There is enough politics in the discussions that have existed about our people in the past, but not enough discussions about the human side of the Palestinians and the Arab people."
But with any new or emerging change, there is always concern about its acceptance.
"I was concerned to present this publicly, at first, because the approach is so new to our community. I was unsure of the reaction of our community, so I presented it to two Palestinians I know who read it and said that they were moved by the story in a way that had not occurred before," he recalls.
"We have to change how we write about ourselves if we expect Americans to change how they view us," he agrees.
Dallal adds, "Scattered Like Seeds addresses the American reader because, as you say, the American reader does not see the face of the Palestinian tragedy and has only been presented to see the politics."
This is Dallal's first book, and probably not his last. But he was inspired to write it by his Anglo-Saxon father-in-law who was writing a genealogy of his own's family's experiences, tracing their ties to the Mayflower and original American Pilgrims.
"My kids asked me about my background and they wanted to hear it, so I sat down and wrote a short story about how I came here and my children loved it," Dallal remembers.
"They asked me to write more. I did write more and ended up writing 900 or so pages. I submitted it to the publisher and he asked me to cut it down and I did."
And the rest, you might say, is history.
[Scattered Like Seeds will be available on Dec. 28. I'll have information on how you can order the book directly from Amazon.com and other online book retailers soon.]
Book Synopsis
Scattered Like Seeds is a human story. It looks at cultural implications of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by simply telling the story of Thafer Allam, a Palestinian American returning to the Middle East.
Born a Palestinian, Allam now lives with his American family in the fictitious village of Ashfield. The son of a celebrated Palestinian resistance fighter who fought the British occupation of Palestine before the outbreak of World War II, Thafer was first sent to Kuwait for safety after the Arab's defeat in the 1947-48 Arab Israeli War.
Two years later, he made his way to the United States where he went to college and received degrees in Nuclear Engineering and Law. After graduating from law school, Thafer joins a Central New York law firm where he builds a successful practice representing utility companies in negotiations with manufacturers of nuclear power plants.
After his young wife dies, Thafer accepts a position as legal counsel to the then obscure Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) headquartered in the city of Kuwait. He interacts with Palestinian friends and relatives scattered the throughout the Middle East and struggles to reconcile the American ways he adopted in the United State with his Palestinian Heritage, which he is now drawn, again by his Palestinian kinsmen living in exile.
An incident explodes in the face of OAPEC's leadership producing havoc and opportunity for Thafer and a Palestinian lover he meets at OAPEC. Determined to pursue his Palestinian agenda, he is invited to provide assistance to various Arab governments in obtaining nuclear power plants in the United States. With the sudden outbreak of the October 1973 Arab Israeli war, he begins to live the events of the war from one radio report to the next trying to reassure his visiting children until the bitter end and one more Arab defeat.
Finally, in the wake of the famous oil embargo, which OAPEC imposes in retaliation against the US and the West, Thafer is torn by the opposing passions and commitments drawing him at once to two different worlds.