'Tracing Back my Own Footsteps': Space, Walking and Memory in 'Shiv'a Mehem' by Nathan Shaham

This article focuses on Natan Shaham's short story "Shiva Mehem" ("Seven of Them"). Written in 1948, the story presents the moral dilemma faced by a group of warriors caught in a minefield. Combining insights from various discourses (ecocriticism, postcolonialism and the emerging field of geocriticism), the article explores the theme of walking both in the story and in the wider context of Shaham's writing and the ideology of the 1948 generation. The exploration of the various aspect of the story's main image, the landmine and its effect on the body's movement in space, leads to viewing the mine image as a thematic and formal nexus connecting time and space, personal and historical time, past memory and the present. Through this powerful image that conveys the experience of the generation facing life in their own sovereign state, "Shiva Mehem" also illustrates the deep connection between Shaham's writing and his movement in or upon the land, both as a writer and as a warrior.