Interculturalism in Sam Najjair’s account of the battle for Tripoli: Soldier for a Summer

• Main Author: Marie-Violaine Louvet
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Asociación Española de Estudios Irlandeses 2016-03-01
• Series: Estudios Irlandeses
• Subjects: Ireland; Libya; Interculturalism; Autobiography; Tripoli Brigade; Sam Najjair.
• Online Access: http://www.estudiosirlandeses.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/MarieV-Louvet_EI11.pdf

Interculturalism is the result of an interaction between different cultures and the possibility of the emergence of a new form of cultural expression and identity. This article studies the process of conciliation or re-conciliation of two cultures in Sam Najjair’s book Soldier for a Summer. This is the diary of an Irish Libyan citizen who participated in the liberation of Tripoli from Gaddafi’s rule in the Summer of 2011, during the Libyan civil war. The reader follows the main character from Dublin to Tripoli and then back to Dublin at the end of the war. In the book, which is first and foremost targeted at the Irish public to try to gather support for the revolution, Sam Najjair outlines an intercultural space between Ireland and Libya, opening ‘an Irish angle’ on the Libyan conflict, directly connected to his dual identity of a Libyan second generation immigrant living in Ireland.