Introduction

This introductory chapter begins by exploring the meanings of ghurba as a concept, a feeling and a state of being that can allow us to understand narratives of dislocation in a more expansive way, first by situating these narratives within the Arab world, even within the boundaries of the homeland itself, and second by disentangling them from experiences of migration, exile and diaspora. The chapter then gives an overview of how literary narratives of migration, displacement, and exile have been approached in postcolonial and Arabic literary studies to critique the centrality of the “West” in these approaches and to propose a more capacious understanding of dislocation in the Arab world, one that is attentive to different forms of ghurba that take place within it. Finally, the chapter introduces the contributions in this volume, which all make it possible to see the region from a different light by focusing on narratives that do not fit typical understandings of ghurba as primarily located in the realm of the unfamiliar and the faraway, and that demonstrate how the Arab world can be experienced as a site of dislocation, a place where estrangement can be experienced by local inhabitants and foreigners alike.