The Perpetual Nakba: Postmemory in Suheir Hammad’s Born Palestinian, Born Black & the Gaza Suite (2010)

Postmemory is the transmission of collective trauma across generations via storytelling, photos, or objects. Such transmission of generational trauma is often found within diasporic communities that were forcibly uprooted from their homeland. The Nakba refers to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine that led to the displacement and expulsion of over 7000 Palestinians in 1948. It is a tragedy that upended the course of Palestinian history, initiating a cycle of trauma that continues to this very day. The echoes of this trauma can be seen in the postmemorial works of the Palestinian diaspora. These works serve as a reminder of the Nakba’s horrific legacy of pain, consequently acting as a counter-narrative to any attempt at erasing or changing history. This paper examines the concept of postmemory in selected poems from Suheir Hammad’s (1973-) Born Palestinian, Born Black & the Gaza Suite (2010). The methodological framework of this paper draws on the theory of postmemory in the writings of Eva Hoffman, Marianne Hirsch, and Stephen Frosh. By tracing the features of postmemory in Hammad’s poems, the paper explores how Hammad not only manages to convey the terror of the Nakba but also highlights its continuous effects on Palestinians worldwide. The paper additionally relates Hammad’s poems to the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip in 2023, thus attesting to the perpetual nature of the Nakba.