On Telling (and Not Telling) Nakba Stories in ‘Sand-Catcher’

On Telling (and Not Telling) Nakba Stories in ‘Sand-Catcher’

Omar Khalifah and Barbara Romaine

In Conversation with Tugrul Mende

Omar Khalifah’s fast-paced and funny debut novel, Sand-Catcher, was published in Arabic in 2020 and last year in Barbara Romaine’s English translation. Here, Tugrul Mende talks about this novel—which focuses on what it means to remember the Nakba—with author Omar Khalifah and translator Barbara Romaine. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Tugrul Mende: Can you tell us a bit, Omar, about the origins of Sand-Catcher?

Omar Khalifah: The book is a reflection of a personal and academic interest for me, in what the Nakba means, the memories of the Nakba. So I started a while ago, working on representations of the Nakba in Palestinian literature, and then on what does it mean to remember the Nakba, in memory studies, how can you “remember” an ongoing catastrophe, and what are the patterns in Palestinian literature, if you will, that try to approach memories of the Nakba. I mean, from a personal perspective as a Palestinian, I grew up with questions about the memories of the Nakba in literature. Even before my academic interest grew, some other Palestinian friends and I were always asking about why is it that Palestine is usually identified with a poet, Mahmoud Darwish, rather than maybe a prose fiction writer? Is Palestine, is the Nakba, more conducive to poetry than a novel? You know, many questions about the perfect genre to capture the Palestinian situation.

And then . . . in the midst of all of these personal and intellectual questions, I started to think about a novel, I wanted to write a novel. I published a short-story collection in 2010, in Arabic, and I was trying to go back to creative writing, so I was always kind of immersed in thinking in terms of fiction. And then something suddenly came to my mind about . . . how about if we reverse the pattern, if we imagine the Palestinian who doesn’t want to share his memories about the Nakba? I was trying to subvert or unsettle the pattern that has been rising—understandably so—in Palestinian literature about registering the memories of the Nakba. And I was trying to manipulate it a little bit. So is there a duty to remember, and what does that mean, and do victims owe us their memories, or are their memories part of their own world? And it’s up to them, actually, to decide whether or not to share it. So, you know, I tried to fictionalize these questions, if you will.

The moment I started—and I shared this with Barbara—the moment I started writing, or maybe the moments right before the beginning, I only had this image of an old man, a survivor of the Nakba, who is adamant about not sharing his memories about the Nakba. So this is maybe the origin of the book. When I started writing, that was the only thing that I had in mind, and then the other characters grew out of this old man’s refusal to share his memories.

TM: What about the title, Sand-Catcher? What did you want to evoke with it?

OK: The novel was nearly completed before the title came, actually. I mean, I’m not good with thinking about titles. As you know, some writers have a title and then they start to expand it into a book. For me, it’s usually the other way around.

So, if I remember correctly, I think I even consulted some friends. I told them, listen, this is the plot, what do you think, if you can suggest something, etcetera etcetera. And then, I don’t know if it was a friend’s suggestion or if I tried to envision what does it mean to hold sand in your hand, like . . . something that you want to catch, but it’s not catchable. Something that you want to tell, but maybe it’s not conducive to telling. I think that was the image that I was trying to convey with this title.

TM: Barbara—you have translated a number of well-known Egyptian authors. What was so compelling for you to translate in this debut novel by a writer who is not as well-known? And could you tell us how you came across the book?

Barbara Romaine: Well, it’s thanks to Omar. He initially approached me. I assume, Omar . . . I never really asked you this, but I assume you tracked me down through Villanova, just maybe with a general search. But I believe, if I remember right, Omar, you had been teaching something that I had translated of Radwa Ashour’s in one of your classes, and that was what induced you to contact me.

So Omar wrote to me and said that he would like to share a PDF of this novel that he had recently published. He didn’t mention that he wanted a translator, so I asked, because I wondered if that might be what was behind the question. I appreciated it, by the way, that he wrote to me in Arabic—that doesn’t always happen. So we corresponded for a little while in Arabic.

I thought, “I hope I’m going to like the book”—and then I loved it. As soon as I started reading the PDF, I was immediately taken by the humor. The humor was one of the things that grabbed me from the start, so I was very receptive to the idea of translating this—that was one thing. And the other aspect is that I really had wanted the opportunity to translate a Palestinian work for a long time. So Omar kind of handed me this gift, and I was happy to take it. It was a nice collaboration. I guessed that it was going to be a pleasurable collaboration, and it absolutely has been.

TM: And Omar—your novel arrived in English at a time when there was enormous pressure on Palestinians to narrate, and to narrate in particular ways. And when it felt as though there was little space to keep one’s story for oneself. Does the book feel different now than it did when you first published it?

OK: Maybe I’ll start with the second part of the question, which is to narrate in a specific way, and relate it to the first thing I mentioned about writing against the pattern. Because there is this fascination—globally, but more so, I guess, in the West—there is this fascination with the trauma plot, right? The idea of trauma, a traumatized person sharing his thoughts, etcetera. I think what I was trying to do with the Nakba, or with this man, is just to point out that the Nakba actually defies the trauma plot, because the Nakba is ongoing. “Trauma” always connotes this idea of a completed event in the past, which is not the case with the Nakba. The Nakba is ongoing. So is the Nakba traumatic? This is a difficult question to answer. Yes and no. Of course if you mean by “trauma” something that is overwhelming, sure. But if you mean by “trauma” an event, a singular event that happened in the past, then this doesn’t actually apply to the Nakba, and what’s happening in Gaza is just a testament to this.

So I was trying to write against exactly what you mentioned, or how you framed it: narrating in a specific way—I don’t want to narrate in that specific way. I don’t want to create another trauma plot of a survivor of the Nakba just sharing his memories about what happened in 1948, because, in my opinion, as foundational as it was, the Nakba is not reduced to what happened in ’48. So that was number one.

Number two, now—what does it mean to read the novel now? Yes, when the war in Gaza started, when this whole thing started in 2023, I was—and I shared this with Barbara; we had a lot of discussion—I was a little bit worried about the release of the novel. Is this the right time for a novel that is sarcastic? A novel that refuses to tell? Now, you know, all the world is talking about Palestine. They want the Palestinian stories. At the beginning, maybe I felt, a little bit, even reluctant to talk about the novel in the midst of this horrible war. But I also felt validated at some point, because when we say that, you know, Palestinians need to tell their stories, well—actually they are. This is perhaps the first genocide that the victims themselves are recording in real time. They are actually filming their deaths. And what’s happening? You know, we’re seeing the outcome. So this kind of obsession with “Yeah, if only they tell their stories, then the people, the world will listen”—which is what the old man is mocking in the novel, actually.

I felt that, after four or five months of the war, I felt that his point of view was a little bit validated, because the people were actually filming their stories, they’re telling their stories, but the outcome was next to nothing. I mean, apart from the emotional support, which I’m sure Palestinians, even Gazans, appreciate. But on the ground, that was translated to almost nothing. So yes, in the beginning—just to go back to the question—in the beginning I was a little bit intimidated. But then I felt that maybe there is a point in reading the story now in the midst of this war.

TM: Maybe to both of you—what was the process of translating it, and how involved were you, Omar, in the translating while Barbara was working on it?

BR: I’ve had the good fortune to do a number of translations of works whose authors were quite fluent in English, which has always meant that they could vet my work, which I wanted them to do. And, you know, it’s turned out differently in each case, because each author has a different approach to things. But in some ways, I felt as if this was the most harmonious collaboration—and here I mean no disrespect to the other authors I’ve worked with. It’s just a question of circumstances and other factors. But I’ve always felt that working with an author whose English was strong improved the chances of a good translation, because it was possible for that author to catch errors or comment on phrasing. And we had a few instances of that kind of thing with Sand-Catcher.

An example that I keep bringing up, because I think it’s salient, is that there is this notion of the ’48 Palestinians—which is to say, those who were caught within the mandate when it was declared in 1948, and ultimately found themselves as citizens of Israel, whether they liked it or not. You know, it’s a question of identity, and what that really means, among other things. I was quite familiar with the concept, but when I ran across wording that referred to it as I was translating, I didn’t recognize it as such . . . Or, I mean, I didn’t catch immediately what it was until Omar alerted me to what I was working with. So my translation was off as a result. And that meant that, because Omar was able to look at the work—and he did, quite closely—he could point that out, and it could get fixed. Which was important—I mean, it’s so central to the whole theme of the novel. It’s not the only example, but it is in some ways maybe the most egregious one.

So that’s one of the things that I appreciated, and I’ve also just always appreciated the sense of mutual respect that I think we’ve enjoyed. It’s been quite a pleasure. So it’s been a really nice collaboration, and I think that that has contributed to the success of the overall endeavor. And I want to say a word, too, about the editor at Coffee House Press, because he really threw a lot of time and effort into it. He is a very dedicated editor. He describes himself as over-dedicated—he says, “I overdo it—you know, you can always call me on it.” And he was very nice about that, but he was also very helpful. There were a lot of things that I had to say, “Wait, wait, you’re overdoing this,” or whatever. But his insights were also quite valuable. So I just wanted to mention that. It was really a three-way collaboration in a lot of ways.

TM: How was it for you, Omar, since you know English very well, to see another person translate your work into this language?

OK: Yeah . . . in the beginning I didn’t have certain expectations, because this was my first Arabic novel. I assumed I wouldn’t contribute to this because, you know, I felt, my work is done, and now this is Barbara’s, and maybe I should not intervene. But I appreciated the fact that Barbara reached out to me. That was really nice of her, just to ask me to read, and I said, “Sure, I’ll read it.” And I think it was good—it was interesting. It was very pleasurable in the beginning for me to read this in English. It felt like reading a different work. And I appreciated Barbara’s ability to convey the sarcastic tone, because some parts of the novel are really, really Palestinian. In the colloquial that was used . . . in some of the profane language that I tried to incorporate, and I think that was really beautifully rendered in English. So I appreciated it while reading it. And I think, as Barbara said, I was able maybe to give some constructive feedback, and I’m glad we did it. But overall, it was a pleasure, actually, and I really thank Barbara for allowing me also to have a little bit of an input in the English translation.

TM: Jumping off that, Barbara, can you tell us a bit about the challenges of translating the novel? Maybe as well, language-wise, how you would translate the satirical or funny bits into English?

BR: That’s one of the questions that it’s difficult for me to answer, because I’m not quite sure. You know, I tend to translate by instinct as much as anything else. And that doesn’t always mean that I necessarily get things right, particularly because there are going to be things that don’t translate, or that don’t translate as well as you might wish. And there were one or two instances—I’m not sure I’m going to be able to reproduce any very faithfully, but there were one or two instances where Omar kind of nudged me a little bit closer to what it was that he was getting at with the humor. And that was very helpful. You know, there was one that I had missed, in reference to—well, partly because I’m not on social media, and it was in reference to social media—that’s something I don’t do, and therefore I missed something. And it was something that it was perfectly possible to bring across in English. My own background was deficient for that, so I missed it. But I think in general it was more a matter of instinct.

And there were certain things that it felt reasonably straightforward to bring across, at least to some degree, in English. And Omar, I got asked a question—I had another interview about a week ago—and I got asked the question, you know, “Are you both funny?” And I was very clear: “Omar is the funny one. It originated with Omar.” So that’s really the best answer I think I can give—I’m not sure it’s adequate.

TM: Coming to you Omar—what was the thought behind giving the core characters archetypal designations rather than names? What does the contrast between not naming them and yet fleshing them out as complex people allow you to do as an author?

OK: I got asked this question a couple of times. And it’s funny, it’s the most difficult question for me to answer, because I can’t give a satisfying answer, simply because I did not really think about it. I started the novel with a verbal sentence, if you will, describing these characters . . . and then I got stuck to the way I’d described them. This wasn’t pre-planned at all. And then, as I was writing the novel, I felt: why not? First of all, I was trying maybe to focus the attention on the most important feature of each character. And I felt at some point that names are not going to add anything. I already kind of fleshed out the essential aspect [of] each character. So what does naming him Muhammad or Ahmad or Omar . . . what does naming him add, now that I spoke about him descriptively in the beginning? And then it was actually challenging, because I always had to refer to him by this kind of adjective or designation.

After I finished, I started to reflect. I felt that maybe this is a way for people to identify with them . . . maybe just to put the names aside and focus on the actions themselves. And also, as an explanation—honestly, this wasn’t on my mind when I started writing the novel—I started thinking about: What does it mean to be a nameless Palestinian? What do names add, you know, in the case of Palestine . . . whether his name is Mahmoud Darwish or Ghassan Kanafani or Emil Habibi or whoever. I mean, we share something, and I wanted in this novel to present the characters struggling under this narrative. Under this umbrella, which is the Nakba.

TM: And, coming to the last question for you, Omar. How do your academic and literary writing complement each other, or how do you distinguish them?

OK: So I think I alluded to this earlier. Especially with this novel, there is a huge interaction between the academic and the creative here. . . . I work academically on memory studies and Palestinian literature. And then I moved to this novel, and then I went back to my expertise, my field. So that was an interesting exercise . . . because I’m doing it in different languages and different mediums, different genres. It’s completely different to do it creatively versus doing it academically. And again, because I do it in different languages, it’s just a different layer of dealing with these issues. But in general, I struggle . . . I shared this with Barbara also in the past. Maybe at some point in my life I have to decide. Because I’m doing things in different languages, it’s not easy.

You know: Shall I dedicate myself to fiction? Arabic fiction? Shall I just focus on my academic work? Sometimes it’s easier when you are passionate about only one . . . at least one language. But to have different languages, it adds pressure, but it creates a lot of pleasure at the same time, because it allows you to disconnect. It allows you a different sphere—you become another self. So I feel I’m two persons in one, which is interesting.

TM: And, Barbara, do you have anything new planned, as far as translation goes, in the next few years or months?

BR: I’m waiting for another opportunity. I have tried sometimes to seek things out, with greater or lesser success, and right now I’m not putting out a lot of effort in that direction. I’m kind of hoping that something else will come along at some point. I had a recent project that was just very short-term—it was sort of a cross between literature and academic. Anyway, that was brief, and it’s done. I hope there will be another literary opportunity at some point. I did translate one of Omar’s stories, and I know he hasn’t had a chance to look at it yet, but I’m hoping that, once he’s settled back in Amman, he may have a chance.

OK: It’s on my list, definitely!

BR: Okay—no rush!

TM: Omar, you’re working on an academic book right now, for the next project—can you tell us about this project?

OK: As I mentioned, I am working on a book about the Nakba. The main idea is, what are the certain particularities of the Nakba that actually make it challenging to remember? And where do these challenges take vivid form, if you will? And I examine Palestinian literature on the one hand, and memory studies on the other, as two sides where we can actually see these challenges playing out. So it’s a study of what it means to remember the Nakba, the memories of the Nakba.

Of course, there is discussion about the impact of the memory of the Holocaust also, and the weaponization of the Holocaust, and how this played a part in silencing the Nakba, so . . . a few interesting issues, let me just put it this way, and I hope I’ll succeed in] bringing this out soon.

Tugrul Mende is a regular contributor to ArabLit.