Ghassan Kanafini - Men In The Sun And Other Palestinian Stories (1962) PDF

Ghassan Fayiz Kanafani was a prominent Palestinian author and militant, considered to be a leading novelist of his generation and one of the Arab world's leading Palestinian writers. Kanafani's works have been translated into more than 17 languages. Kanafani was born in Acre, Mandatory Palestine in 1936.

Men in the Sun is a novel by Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani, originally published in 1962. Men in the Sun follows three Palestinian refugees seeking to travel from the refugee camps in Iraq, where they cannot find work, to Kuwait where they hope to find work as laborers in the oil boom.

"Far from being a simple parable, [Men in the Sun] depicts some often hidden aspects of the complex social and political reality of the Palestinians ... and is also a well-told story.... We should not forget the excellent translation of Hilary Kilpatrick which not only manages to preserve the subtle voice of the narrator, but also matches accurately the sober and lucid prose in Arabic for which Kanafani was hugely admired."―Samir el-Youssef, Banipal

This collection of important stories by novelist, journalist, teacher, and Palestinian activist Ghassan Kanafani includes the stunning novella Men in the Sun (1962), the basis of the film The Deceived. Also in the volume are "The Land of Sad Oranges" (1958), "'If You Were a Horse . . .'" (1961), "A Hand in the Grave" (1962), "The Falcon" (1961), "Letter from Gaza" (1956), and an extract from Umm Saad (1969). In the unsparing clarity of his writing, Kanafani offers the reader a gritty look at the agonized world of Palestine and the adjoining Middle East.

........Men in the Sun

TO ANNI H. KANAFANI. G.

Abu Qais

Abu Qais rested his chest on the damp ground, and the earth

began to throb under him, with tired heartbeats, which trembled

through the grains of sand and penetrated the cells of his body.

Every time he threw hiqiself down with his chest to the ground

he sensed that throbbing, as though the heart of the earth had

been pushing its difficult way towards the l ight from the utmost

depths of hell, ever since the first time he had lain there. Once

when he said that to his neighbour, with whom he shared the

field in the land he left ten years ago, the man answered mockingly :

'It's the sound of your own heart. You can hear it when you lay

your chest close to the ground.'

What wicked nonsense ! And the smell, then? The smell which,

when he sniffed it, surged into his head and then poured down

into his veins. Every time he breathed .the scent of the earth, as

he lay on it, he imagined that he was sniffing his wife's hair when

she had just walked out of the bathroom, after washing with

cold water. The very same smell, the smell of a woman who had

washed with cold water and covered his face with her hair while

it was still damp. The same throbbing, like carrying a small bird

tenderly in your hands.

The damp earth, he thought, was no doubt the remains of rain

yesterday. No, yesterday it had not rained. The sky now could

rain nothing :.mt scorching heat and dust. Have you forgotten

where you are ? Have you forgotten?

He turned himself over and lay on his back, cradling his head

in his hands. He started to stare at the sky. It was blazing white,

and there was one black bird circling high up, alone and aimless.

He did not know why, but he was suddenly filled with a bitter

feeling of being a stranger, and for a moment he thought he was

on the point of weeping.......