Do you like history books? Well, me neither; but do you want to learn about history? History can be interesting, especially if it’s told as a story. We all loved that one history teacher who taught us history in the form of stories; and their stories probably stuck with us long after school.
Historical literature is that perfect combination between boring history books and interesting stories. It’s a literary genre where the plot takes place in the past. It tells you history from the perspective of characters in your books.
You’d learn about a revolution, a war, a crisis without being bored. Not only that, but you’d also learn how different kinds of people reacted. The revolutionaries and the supporters and those simply trying to go through with their lives quietly. You’d engage with them. You’d feel their fear, their rage, their relief; all that while learning about that period of history.
I never thought I’d read a book about Afghanistan and enjoy it but here I am reading past my bedtime. I’m fighting sleep while reading “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns”. I also didn’t know much about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I only knew what we were taught back in middle school. But through Radwa Ashour’s, ”Al Tantouriah”, I lived the whole thing starting from 1948 till the early 2000’s.
These books and hundreds more take you on journeys a few years or centuries back in time. You live with the people of the French revolution and share their rage. You hate Israel more and more when you live what they have done to Palestine, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon. You’d finally learn that people who lived through these events are people like us.They have the same feelings we have, the same thoughts and concerns. They’re just like us.
And who knows maybe one day in a hundred years or so, people would learn about us in history books.
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