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Israeli Reality As Seen Through the Eyes of Sayed Kashua
Vlk, Michal ; Boušek, Daniel (advisor) ; Šedinová, Jiřina (referee)
This study aims to illuminate and analyze the Israeli-Arab reality as it is reflected in the novelistic works of Sayed Kashua. Sayed Kashua, an Israeli-Arab writer and journalist, who writes in Hebrew, has become a cultural phenomenon in the modern Israel. He opts to write and describe the hyphenated identity of Israeli-Arabs and their ambivalent perceptions of the Jewish majority. Kashua is torn between the Arab and Jewish worlds and he does not feel satisfied with either of them: the Jewish-majority society accuses him of anti-Zionism, while the Arab society considers his choice of language as a treachery and denial of the Palestinian rich cultural, linguistic, and literary heritage and accuses him of being highly critical of Palestinian culture and society and of expressing pro-Israeli attitudes. The thesis presents an analysis of the recurrent theme of co-existence of Arabs and Jews in Israel and of the identity crisis of Israeli-Arabs in Kashua's novelistic production. At the same time, the study contextualizes Kashua's literary writings within the writings of other prominent Israeli-Arab authors, who published their works in Hebrew, while seeking an answer to the question of how these writings are perceived in the Israeli society and abroad.
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