Between two worlds : ethnicity, identity, and Arab American self-empowerment in Diana Abu-Jaber’s "Crescent"

Abstract EN

The aim of this paper is to analyze issues of identity and cultural hybridity in Diana Abu-Jaber‘s Crescent through the exploration of the importance of storytelling, language and culinary art as cultural tropes for identity formation in Arab-American reality.

The issues that this study tackles are examined through the critical approaches of post-colonialism, feminism, and food studies.

Crescent adapts elements from The Arabian Nights in diverse ways, mainly; the framing of the chapters and the ongoing story-filled content involving fantastic segments recounted orally.

Cooking functions as a complex language for communicating love, evoking memory and dealing with displacement.

Food emerges as an avenue for questioning cultural, racial and linguistic boundaries.

In a world of mutilating political struggle and loss, Abu-Jaber‘s hybrid narrative utilizes native cultural elements to construct spaces wherein people perceive the possibilities of interaction and community.