LITERATURE AND NATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

syrine c. houtestrangement from Lebanon and later from America is symptomatic of hisironic nostalgia. By contrast, Samir demonstrates a modified version of tendernostalgia by shuttling back and forth between two homes. His good relationshipwith his father and mother, who come to accept his homosexuality and illness,helps him in maintaining his physical connection to Lebanon. Unlike manyLebanese whose professed love for their country shrank or remained tied tospecific territories, defined by their respective religious sects, Samir’s grew whilecontinuing to be secular and apolitical. With his mother and his long-timeAmerican lover on his side, Samir dies in peace, ‘at home’ with himself. Makram,by contrast, dies at home but not in peace. The eventual elimination of Makram’sinterfaith family symbolises the erasure of hope for a politically and religiouslyharmonious nation. Raised on the principles of tolerance and love, Makram diestoo young to effect any positive changes in members of his generation, let aloneposterity.Luckily, however, hope for a better future for Lebanon lurks in two ofMakram’s female friends: Nawal, Mohammad’s young sister, and Marwa, herbest friend, both born in 1972. Both are ambitious, principled and highlyeducated. Ironically, however, their academic success abroad lowers theirchances of refitting into Lebanese society. In the US, they ‘were never able tocompletely shed their indigenous relationship with their culture’ (Alameddine79). Conversely, they refuse to abide by patriarchal Lebanese mores andcustoms, especially those of marriage. Mohammad wonders why his sister ‘keptgoing home at least twice a year’ but admits that, in doing so, she remained ‘thefamily bridge’ (156). In wishing to go back permanently after he dies and carrythe fruits of their exilic lives to a country which needs them, Nawal and Marwarepresent ‘a new breed, a new species’ (79), that is, a new hope for Lebanon.Unlike Mohammad and Samir, who spend their lives, shortened by AIDS,reacting to their past centred on one or two turning points, these two womenmanage to bridge the gap between home and abroad by evolving into responsibleindividuals. If anything, exilic life has strengthened their nationalistic feelingsand sense of duty. Whether this achievement is due to gender and/or sexualorientation is not made clear, as their voices are mediated mostly throughMohammad’s consciousness.Unlike most aforementioned characters, several others suffer from internalexile. As Susan Rubin Suleiman states, ‘All travelers are outsiders somewhere… but not all outsiders are travelers’ (1998: 3). Zygmunt Bauman corroboratesthis view by equating exilic existence with three modes: being literally out ofplace, needing to be elsewhere, and not having that ‘elsewhere’ where onewould rather be. From this perspective, exile becomes a place of compulsoryconfinement, one that is ‘itself out of place in the order of things’ (1998: 321).David Bevan takes this opinion one step further by suggesting that ‘exile within— 198 —www.taq.ir