Writing the Disasters of War: The Literary Journalism of Displacement in the Middle East

• Deborah Campbell ^[1]
  1. [1] University of Victoria

     University of Victoria

     Canadá

     
• Localización: The Routledge Companion to World Literary Journalism / John S. Bak (ed. lit.), Bill Reynolds (ed. lit.), 2023, ISBN 978-0-367-35524-1, págs. 268-276
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The process of making literary journalism about displaced people has many obstacles—security and access to reliable sources are only the most glaring. How do we tell a complex story clearly while avoiding false simplicity? What makes for representative characters, and how do we go about finding them? How do we make readers care about far-off events they think they already know about, or that they do not think concern them? What literary forms and techniques best serve the story? This chapter traces the process of producing three works of literary journalism that portray various kinds of displacement in the Middle East, including internal (and psychological) displacement, war refugees, and trafficked migrant workers on U.S. military bases. It goes behind the scenes to show how and why Jean Said Makdisi, Scott Anderson, and Sarah Stillman chose their material, structure, and narrative approaches, looking at their decision-making as revealed in the texts and their own explanations. The chapter argues that each writer’s position in the story, research strategies, storytelling goals, and background were instrumental in shaping their process and consequently the published work.