Memory and Mourning, Forgetting and Forgiving in Fadia Faqir’s Willow Trees Don’t Weep

Abstract

This paper examines Fadia (2014) novel Willow Trees Don’t Weep where memory and mourning, forgetting and forgiveness are integrated to show the dialogic nature of these elements and the possibility of them coming together. It shows how the personal, the collective, and the historical memories can be amalgamated in the novel by drawing from the works of Halbwachs, Paul Ricoeur, and Pierre Nora. Willow Trees Don’t Weep relates a narrative of Najwa who through memory tries to reconstruct her past, the image of a father who abandoned her when she was three to become a terrorist, and her identity. With the help of scattered sites of memory (lieux de mémoire) everywhere in the novel, such as photos, letters, gifts, and her father’s diary, the protagonist can inscribe her memories as a narrative. At the end of the novel, she is able to forget and forgive to be able to mourn and go on with her future. Faqir also opened the way for a whole generation to mourn and for history to be written from a different perspective.