A Snake Under the Sand: Unearthing Buried Voices in Selma Dabbagh’s Radio Play The Brick

Abstract

This article examines The Brick, a radio play written by British-Palestinian novelist Selma Dabbagh for BBC Radio 4 in 2014. It focuses on the voice of the main character in the play, a Palestinian Christian woman named Rasha Khoury, as she tries to rebuild her identity and her sense of belonging along with her idea of home and family. The paper takes into account the gender relationship between father and daughter as Rasha’s voice fights to confirm her faith in the heroic image of her father, a long deceased Palestinian lawyer. The article shows how her voice and those of minor characters bring up hints on the interconnection between cultural memory and the traumatic effects of conflict and displacement on Palestinians. After some remarks on women’s radio drama, on the use of the voice and sound, the author focuses on the connections between individual and collective memory, and between gender roles and family myths, observing the way the author uses voice, silence and music.