Homes under Siege: Trauma Processing and the Burden of Exile in Hala Alyan’s Salt Houses

Set against the backdrop of Nablus, Hala Alyan’s 2017 novel Salt Houses explores the traumatic predicament of a Palestinian family across four generations as they navigate spaces of exile, forced displacement, and loss – key concerns of Palestinian diasporic literature. The novel traces the transgenerational struggles of the Yacoubs, who grapple with belonging and identity as they move from their homeland, Palestine, to various countries due to political instability and ongoing conflicts. The novel, thus, poignantly captures the effects of exile on subjectivity, making it a typical trauma narrative. Accordingly, this paper offers a preliminary analysis of the novel through the lens of trauma theory, particularly drawing on Sigmund Freud’s concepts of “mourning” and “melancholia” alongside Dominick LaCapra’s notions of “acting out” and “working through.” Living in a present where the past is hauntingly relived, the Yacoubs remain trapped in endless cycles of suffering. The Yacoub descendants act out the unassimilated traumas of their ancestors, suggesting that “working through” remains an unlikely, if not an unattainable, process.