The Refugee as a “Russian Doll”: Haitham Hussein’s Readings of Ghurba and Exile at the Time of the Global “Migration Crisis”

The present study explores the developments that have recently occurred in modern and contemporary Arabic fiction of migration and exile, in terms of artistic creation and critical debate, emphasizing the link between sociopolitical reality and literary production. After providing a brief insight into literature of forced displacement (adab al-tahjir) and asylum (adab al-luju’), the chapter focuses on Haitham Hussein’s trajectory as a case study, by analyzing his last novel, Qad la yabqa ahad, aghatha kristy … ta‘aly aqul laki kayfa a‘iysh (No One May Remain. Agatha Christie, Come, I’ll Tell You How I Live, 2021 [2018]). This work of pseudo-fiction retraces his experience of flight to Europe from Syria across the Middle East, raising crucial questions on belonging, in-/hospitality and refugeeism at the time of the so-called “Migration Crisis.” In this respect, the book not only unveils the ambiguities of the Western Humanitarian Reason but also the fluctuations of Muslim solidarity, especially towards Kurdish minorities. My reading of the novel will ultimately show how Hussein’s criticism of the latter goes beyond the canonical East/West opposition when talking about migration encounters, and stands as a universal essay on the notion of Otherness, thus (re)attributing virtuous connotations to the ghurba as a site of self-reflection and identity reconstruction.