Silenced Histories, Resistant Voices: Palestinian Women’s Testimonies in 21st-Century Literature in the Light of the Nakba

This research paper examines the decisive significance of Palestinian women’s testimonies in preserving the cultural memory of the Nakba in light of a critical reading of Minor Detail and The Woman from Tantoura. This text raises questions about women’s testimonials in the form of counter-archives to challenge the hegemonic history of Israeli culture and, through the application of cultural memory studies, reconstruct the marginalized realities of Palestinian women in order to explore through their stories, often marginalized in history and literature, the ways in which Palestinian literature resists systematic erasure in maintaining cultural memory. This research finds great significance in emphasizing the need to give emphasis to marginalized voices in maintaining history, to give emphasis to pervasive discourses in systematically erasing marginalized voices, and to produce cultural memory among generations in their fight to preserve history in the present. It also indicates that despite occupation and oppression, women's testimonies record past injustices and express resistance acts that serve to preserve Palestinian memories and their identity across the generations. Women’s voices, through these artworks, do focus on the gender gaps of cultural memories, which express the significance of their testimonies to the formation of collective consciousness. Therefore, this study has contributed to postcolonial literary studies, particularly in relation to the intersection of gender, memories, and resistance built on traumatic events and/or crimes of colonization.