The Choice of Nomadism

A Route in Shimon Adaf's Prose

Abstract

Shimon Adaf is the most prominent Israeli writer to give voice to the peripheral experience and to the tensions that arise between peripheral and hegemonic spaces. This essay focuses on two works that may be considered as complementary: Sunburnt Faces and Mox Nox. These novels portray their protagonists' coming of age - a process that commences in the southern space of their childhood, a space that is etched into them and from which they must break away in order to progress as writers. At the same time, they highlight the tensions between peripheral and hegemonic spaces. Thus, the novels offer a spatial and temporal examination of the process of coming of age, which involves a constant state of becoming. The essay presents the distinct characteristics of each work and analyzes the development of the spatial movement suggested by Adaf, which turns to the spatial and esthetic alternative of nomadic art.