Yumna Kassab's impressionistic novel Politica considers moral dilemmas and harsh choices in a time of war
Politica is the fourth novel by Yumna Kassab, who has made a significant impact on the Australian literary scene since the publication of her debut novel The House of Youssef in 2019.
- Politica is the fourth novel by Yumna Kassab, who has made a significant impact on the Australian literary scene since the publication of her debut novel The House of Youssef in 2019.
- Politica is written in Kassab’s now signature polyphonic style.
- Set in a small community, the novel is sparsely written, with minimal description of character, place or historical moment.
- Politica achieves its impressionistic effects through quirky vignettes, poetry, fable, gnomic aphorisms, and arguments between conservative forces and those seeking to redefine their values.
- Some of the characters are resistance leaders and their heirs; others are ordinary people with everyday aspirations.
- Accept the political as the only authentic option or seek the consolations of private life?
- Politica has allegorical ambitions, so these dilemmas cannot be resolved by referring to a describable geopolitical reality.
- The novel spans decades, yet no particular enemy or threat can be consistently identified, nor does it identify the nation in which it is set.
- idolise death over life […] Such is the tendency of one who has not yet learned to live.
Read more:
Colonial and nationalist myths are recast in Yumna Kassab's Australiana
A moral project
- This is of crucial importance when Arab and Muslim political movements, including that of the Palestinians, are relentlessly delegitimised and dehumanised.
- Politica wants to show what a resistance movement might look like from the side of the oppressed.
- The novel questions the total warfare the West now excuses as a drive for security.
- Yet there is always a danger that a novel seeking to say something about politics will begin to moralise.
- A war that began with noble ideals comes to resemble a plague laying waste to all who experience it.
- It prefers bathos in a minor key to the ambitious scope of historical fiction, now an abundant postcolonial genre.
Ned Curthoys does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.