Other Places, Upside-down Places: Narrating the Nakba (1948) from the Future, palestine Looks to the Future Contest the Present

There are crucial moments and turning points resulting from the progression of events that indelibly mark the texture of any artistic expression. These turning points are usually situated in the crevices of personal and shared history and in the significant traumas and watersheds that inevitably mark a “before” and an “after”. In these crevices, trauma becomes a source of inspiration that interrupts the continuity of daily life, thus causing disruptions that are expressed in literary works by artists who are trauma survivors themselves. The Nakba (1948) is undoubtedly the trauma par excellence for Palestine, with far-reaching repercussions for the entire Arab world: It is a symbolic burden from which generations of writers continue to draw inspiration, today as yesterday. Whilst the Nakba continues to be a source of inspiration for Palestinian literature, it seems that this trauma has prevented Palestinian authors from looking to the future. Starting from these premises, this contribution aims to provide a reading of overturned worlds and dystopian imaginaries born from the creative inspiration of Palestinian authors who try to imagine the future and to look at futuristic scenarios to escape the present.