Palestinians’ Displacement and Identity Crisis in Hala Alyan’s Salt Houses (2017) and Shahla Ujayli’s A Sky So Close to Us (2019)

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dc.contributor.authorTouzi Melissa
dc.contributor.authorMektout Yasmine
dc.date.accessioned2026-02-24T09:51:24Z
dc.date.available2026-02-24T09:51:24Z
dc.date.issued2025
dc.description52p. ; (+CD-Rom)
dc.description.abstractThe aim of this dissertation is to examine how displacement, identity, and cultural memory are represented in Hala Alyan’s Salt Houses and Shahla Ujayli’s a Sky So Close to Us. It seeks to explore how both authors portray the impact of exile and migration on personal and collective identity, particularly within the context of Arab societies marked by war, diaspora, and generational fragmentation. By comparing these two narratives, the study aims to highlight the ways in which literature functions as a space for negotiating belonging, and reconstructing fragmented identities in the face of loss and displacement. Through the theoretical framework applies Amin Maalouf’s concept of plural identity from in the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to belong (1998) and Edward Said’s Out of Place following Orientalism and the Other’s concepts to analyze Hala Alyan’s Salt Houses (2017) and Shahla Ujayli’s A Sky So Close to Us (2019). Maalouf’s notion that identity is hybrid, dynamic, and shaped by cultural interaction helps explain how characters negotiate belonging amid exile and displacement. Said’s use of the two concepts exposes how western narratives construct the East as inferior and exotic, offering a lens to understand how both authors challenge stereotypical images of Arab identity. Together, these theories reveal how Alyan and Ujayli portray identity as a space of resistance and reconstruction. In conclusion, this dissertation demonstrates that both Salt Houses (2017) and A Sky So Close to Us (2019) explore identity as a multifaceted construct shaped by exile, displacement, and memory. Through Amin Maalouf’s theoretical lens, the novels reveal how personal and collective identities evolve through cultural encounters and historical disruption. Hala and Shahla reimagine belonging not as a return to a lost homeland but as a process of continuous negotiation and self-redefinition.
dc.identifier.citationLiterature and Interdiscipliniary Aproaches
dc.identifier.urihttps://dspace.ummto.dz/handle/ummto/29817
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherUniversité Mouloud Mammeri Tizi ouzou
dc.subjectdisplacement
dc.subjectexile
dc.subjectbelonging
dc.subjectstruggle
dc.subjectdiaspora
dc.subjectidentity crisis.
dc.titlePalestinians’ Displacement and Identity Crisis in Hala Alyan’s Salt Houses (2017) and Shahla Ujayli’s A Sky So Close to Us (2019)
dc.typeThesis

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