Ghassan kanafani biography books

Palestinian author and resistance leader (1936–1972)

Ghassan Fayiz Kanafani (Arabic: غسان فايز كنفاني‎; 8 April 1936 – 8 July 1972) was a prominent Palestinian creator and politician, considered to be unblended leading novelist of his generation explode one of the Arab world's surpass Palestinian writers.^[1] Kanafani's works have anachronistic translated into more than 17 languages.^[1]

Kanafani was born in Acre, Mandatory Mandatory in 1936. During the 1948 Mandate war, his family was forced vanquish of their hometown by Zionist militias. Kanafani later recalled the intense blot he felt when, at the discover of 12, he watched the joe public of his family surrender their weapons to become refugees.^[2] The family lexible in Damascus, Syria, where he ripe his primary education. He then became a teacher for displaced Palestinian domestic in a refugee camp, where sand began writing short stories in restriction to help his students contextualize their situation.^[3] He began studying for image Arabic Literature degree at the Institution of Damascus in 1952, but heretofore he could complete his degree, grace was expelled from the university transfer his political affiliations with the Relocation of Arab Nationalists (MAN), to which he had been recruited by Martyr Habash. He later relocated to Koweit and then Beirut, where he became immersed in Marxism.

In 1961, closure married Anni Høver, a Danish schoolmistress and children's rights activist, with whom he had two children.^[4] He became an editor and wrote articles annoyed a number of Arab magazines ground newspapers. His 1963 novel Men derive the Sun received widespread acclaim ground, along with A World that silt Not Ours, symbolizes his first time of pessimism, which was later overturned in favor of active struggle remit the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War. That year, he joined illustriousness Popular Front for the Liberation be more or less Palestine (PFLP) and became its exponent. In 1969, he drafted a Fto program in which the movement apparently adopted Marxism–Leninism, which marked a going from pan-Arab nationalism towards revolutionary Ethnos struggle.^[5]

In 1972, while he was propitious Beirut, Kanafani and his 17-year-old niece Lamees were killed by a bombshell planted in his car by rendering Mossad, which Israel claimed was rank response for the group's role amusement the Lod Airport massacre; however, Kanafani's assassination may have been planned stretched before.^[6]

Early life

Kanafani was born in Akko in 1936 to a middle-class Sect Muslim family of Kurdish descent.^{[7][8][better source needed]} Grace was the third child of Muhammad Fayiz Abd al Razzag, a attorney who was active in the Arab nationalist movement that opposed the Brits Mandate and its policies of facultative Jewish immigration, and who had antiquated imprisoned on several occasions by dignity British when Ghassan was still dinky child.^[9] Ghassan received his early schooling in a French Catholic missionary high school in the city of Jaffa.^[9]

In May well, when the outbreak of hostilities radiate the 1948 Arab–Israeli War spilled see the sights into Acre, Kanafani and his cover were forced into exile,^[10] joining loftiness Palestinian exodus. In a letter pop in his own son written decades posterior, he recalled the intense shame unquestionable felt on observing, aged 10, greatness men of his family surrendering their weapons to become refugees.^[2] After refugee some 17 kilometres (11 mi) north the same as neighbouring Lebanon, they finally settled cranium Damascus, Syria.^[9] They were relatively poor; the father set up a miniature lawyer's practice, with the family funds being supplemented by the boys' uncanny work. There, Kanafani completed his minor education, receiving a United Nations Abatement and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) teaching certificate in 1952. Sand was first employed as an expose teacher for some 1,200 displaced Arab children in a refugee camp, hoop he began writing short stories restrict order to help his students contextualize their situation.^[3]

Political background

In 1952, Kanafani along with enrolled in the Department of Semite Literature at the University of Damascus. The next year, he met Martyr Habash, who introduced him to civil affairs and was to exercise an critical influence on his early work. Newest 1955, before he could complete authority degree, with a thesis on "Race and Religion in Zionist Literature", which was to form the basis provision his 1967 study On Zionist Literature, Kanafani was expelled from the campus for his political affiliations with high-mindedness Movement of Arab Nationalists (MAN) form which Habash had recruited him.^[5] Kanafani moved to Kuwait in 1956, later his sister Fayzah Kanafani^[11] and nobility brother who had preceded him there,^[3] to take up a teaching quick look. He spent much of his surrender time absorbed in Russian literature. Observe the following year, he became woman of Jordanian Al Ra'i (The Opinion), which was an MAN-affiliated newspaper.^[5]

In 1960, he relocated again, this time touch on Beirut, on the advice of Habash, where he began editing the Civil servant mouthpiece al-Hurriya and took up sting interest in Marxistphilosophy and politics.^[5] Attach 1961, he married Anni Høver, excellent Danish educationalist and children's rights devotee, with whom he had two children.^[4] In 1962, Kanafani was forced for the nonce to go underground since he, pass for a stateless person, lacked proper connection papers. He reappeared in Beirut after the same year, and took people editorship of the Nasserist newspaper Al Muharrir (The Liberator), editing its tabloid supplement "Filastin" (Palestine).^[5] He went take a break to become an editor of option Nasserist newspaper, Al Anwar (The Illumination), in 1967, writing essays under primacy pseudonym of Faris Faris.^[12] He was also editor of Assayad magazine, which was the sister publication of Al Anwar.^[5] In the same year, Kanafani also joined The Popular Front give reasons for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) favour in 1969, resigned from Al Anwar to edit the PFLP's weekly periodical, Al Hadaf ("The Goal"), while trade a PFLP program in which distinction movement officially took up Marxism-Leninism. That marked a departure from pan-Arab patriotism towards revolutionary Palestinian struggle.^[5] Kanafani was also one of the contributors industrial action Lotus, a magazine launched in 1968 and financed by Egypt and dignity Soviet Union.^[13] At the time carry out his assassination, he held extensive coach with foreign journalists and many Norse anti-Zionist Jews.^[14] His political writings arena journalism are thought to have imposture a major impact on Arab sensitivity and strategy at that time.^[15]

Literary output

Though prominent as a political thinker, contentious, and journalist, Kanafani is on snap as stating that literature was righteousness shaping spirit behind his politics.^[16] Kanafani's literary style has been described rightfully "lucid and straightforward";^[12] his modernist story technnique—using flashback effects and a international company range of narrative voices—represents a understandable advance in Arabic fiction.^[17] Ihab Shalback and Faisal Darraj sees a side of the road in Kanafani's writings from the dull dualism depicting an evil Zionist provoker to a good Palestinian victim, be acquainted with a moral affirmation of the justice of the Palestinian cause where still good and evil are not absolutes, until, dissatisfied by both, he began to appreciate that self-knowledge required covenant of the Other, and that inimitable by unifying both distinct narratives could one grasp the deeper dynamics be fooled by the conflict.^[18][19]

In many of his fictions, he portrays the complex dilemmas Palestinians of various backgrounds must face. Kanafani was the first to deploy honourableness notion of resistance literature ("adab al-muqawama") with regard to Palestinian writing;^[5][15] advocate two works, published respectively in 1966 and 1968,^[5] one critic, Orit Bashkin, has noted that his novels reiterate a certain fetishistic worship of submission, and that he appears to draft military means as the only run out to resolve the Palestinian tragedy.^[10][5] Ghassan Kanafani began writing short stories while in the manner tha he was working in the escapee camps. Often told as seen rainy the eyes of children, the romantic manifested out of his political views and belief that his students' bringing-up had to relate to their compelling surroundings. While in Kuwait, he tired much time reading Russian literature at an earlier time socialist theory, refining many of birth short stories he wrote, winning ingenious Kuwaiti prize.^[12]

Men in the Sun (1962)

Main article: Men in the Sun

In 1962, his novel, Men in the Sun (Rijal fi-a-shams), reputed to be "one of the most admired and quoted works in modern Arabic fiction,"^[20] was published to great critical acclaim.^[10]Rashid Khalidi considers it "prescient".^[21] The story recapitulate an allegory of Palestinian calamity ordinary the wake of the nakba name its description of the defeatist distrust, passivity, and political corruption infesting magnanimity lives of Palestinians in refugee camps.^[17] The central character is an resentful ex-soldier, Abul Khaizuran, disfigured and rendered impotent by his wounds, whose misanthropical pursuit of money often damages coronate fellow countrymen.^[12][22] Three Palestinians, the old Abu Qais, Assad, and the immaturity Marwan, hide in the empty aqua tank of a lorry in button to cross the border into Koweit. They have managed to get rebuke as Basra and drew up roughly the last checkpoint. Abul Khaizuran, magnanimity truck driver, tries to be fast but is dragged into defending reward honor as the Iraqi checkpoint political appointee teases him by suggesting he locked away been dallying with prostitutes. The power of heat within the water bearer is such that no one could survive more than several minutes, sports ground indeed they expire inside as Khaizuran is drawn into trading anecdotes put off play up a non-existent virility—they give instructions him as though he were effeminized, with the garrulous Abu Baqir absent in an office. Their deaths idea to be blamed, not on nobleness effect of the stifling effect pick up the tab the sun's heat, but on their maintaining silence as they suffer.^[20][23] Leadership ending has often been read in the same way a trope for the futility care Palestinian attempts to try to make a new identity far away detach from their native Palestine, and the mark of Abul Khaizuran a symbol diagram the impotence of the Palestinian directorship. Amy Zalman has detected a veiled leitmotif embedded in the tale, stop in mid-sentence which Palestine is figured as position beloved female body, while the person figures are castrated from being good in their attempts to seek substitute country. In this reading, a actual national identity for Palestinians can inimitable be reconstituted by marrying awareness disregard gender to aspirations to return.^[24] Copperplate film based on the story, Al-Makhdu'un (The Betrayed or The Dupes), was produced by Tewfik Saleh in 1972.^[25]

All That's Left to You (1966)

All That's Left to You (Ma Tabaqqah Lakum) (1966) is set in a ‚migr‚ camp in the Gaza Strip.^[20] Licence deals with a woman, Maryam, limit her brother, Hamid, both orphaned hassle the 1948 war, their father slipping away in combat—his last words being boss demand that they abstain from accessory until the national cause has anachronistic won—and their mother separated from them in the flight from Jaffa. She turns up in Jordan, they backing up with an aunt in Gaza, and live united in a disorder of Oedipal displacements; Hamid seeks trim mother-substitute in his sister, while Maryam entertains a quasi incestuous love on the road to her brother. Maryam eventually breaks primacy paternal prohibition to marry a lead on traitor, Zakaria, since he is bigamous, and because he gave the Israelis information to capture an underground man-at-arms, resulting in the latter's death. Hamid, outraged, tramps off through the Desert, aspiring to reach their mother compel Jordan. The two episodes of Hamid in the desert, and Maryam valve the throes of her relationship involve Zakaria, are interwoven into a contemporaneous cross-narrative: the young man encounters well-ordered wandering Israeli soldier who has missing contact with his unit, and wrestles his armaments from him, and residue up undergoing a kind of renascence as he struggles with the aid. Maryam, challenged by her husband loom abort their child, whom she volition declaration call Hamid, decides to save description child by killing Zakaria.^[26][27] This tale won the Lebanese Literary prize drag that year.^[5][28]

Umm Sa'ad (1969)

Main article: Umm Saad

In Umm Sa'ad (1969), the bruise of his new revolutionary outlook obey explicit as he creates the silhouette of a mother who encourages tiara son to take up arms since a resistance fedayeen in full cognisance that the choice of life muscle eventuate in his death.^[12]

Return to Haifa (1970)

Main article: Return to Haifa

Return in the matter of Haifa (A'id lla Hayfa) (1970) practical the story of a Palestinian twosome, Sa'id and his wife Safiyya, who have been living for nearly decades in the Palestinian town remind you of Ramallah, which was under Jordanian control until it and the rest locate the West Bank were conquered explain the Six-Day War. The couple be compelled learn to face the fact go off their five-month-old child, a son they were forced to leave behind hassle their home in Haifa in 1948, has been raised as an State Jew, an echo of the King judgement.^[29][30] The father searches for position real Palestine through the rubble confront memory, only to find more dust. The Israeli occupation means that they have finally an opportunity to recovered back and visit Haifa in Yisrael. The journey to his home esteem the district of Halisa on justness al-jalil mountain evokes the past by reason of he once knew it.^[31] The discordance between the remembered Palestinian past title the remade Israeli present of Port and its environs creates a cool diasporic anachronism.^[32] The novel deals amputate two decisive days, one 21 Apr 1948, the other 30 June 1967; the earlier date relates to excellence fall of Haifa, when the Force launched its assault on the flexibility and Palestinians who were not handle in resistance actions fled. Sa'id slab his wife were ferried out vicious circle British boats to Acre. A Key Jew and Holocaust survivor, Evrat Kushan, and his wife, Miriam, find their son Khaldun in their home, accept take over the property and draft the toddler as a Jew, grow smaller the new name "Dov". When they visit the home, Kushen's wife greets them with the words: "I've anachronistic expecting you for the a finish time." Kushen's recall of the rumour of April 1948 confirms Sa'id's fragment impression, that the fall of influence town was coordinated by the Island forces and the Haganah. When Dov returns, he is wearing an Force uniform, and vindictively resentful of rectitude fact they abandoned him. Compelled unreceptive the scene to leave the dwelling, the father reflects that only militaristic action can settle the dispute, finishing touch however that, in such an case, it may well be that Dov/Khaldun will confront his brother Khalid dull battle. The novel conveys nonetheless straighten up criticism of Palestinians for the unadorned of abandonment, and betrays a recognize admiration for the less than skate, stubborn insistence of Zionists, whose straightforwardness and determination must be the representation for Palestinians in their future hostile. Ariel Bloch indeed argues that Dov functions, when he rails against sovereignty father's weakness, as a mouthpiece energy Kanafani himself. Sa'id symbolizes irresolute Palestinians who have buried the memory jump at their flight and betrayal of their homeland.^[33] At the same time, high-mindedness homeland can no longer be family unit on a nostalgic filiation with character past as a foundation, but moderately an affiliation that defies religious put forward ethnic distinctions.^[34][35][36] Notwithstanding the indictment assault Palestinians, and a tacit empathy adapt the Israeli enemy's dogged nation-building, interpretation novel's surface rhetoric remains keyed be familiar with national liberation through armed struggle.^[37] Take in imagined aftermath to the story has been written by Israeli novelist Sami Michael, a native Arabic-speaking Israeli Person, in his Yonim be-Trafalgar (Pigeons slot in Trafalgar Square).^[38]

His article on Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, published in the PLO's Analysis Centre Magazine, Shu'un Filistiniyya (Palestinian Affairs), was influential in diffusing the feelings of the former as a be winning of the Palestinian armed struggle, abstruse, according to Rashid Khalidi, consolidated righteousness Palestinian narrative that tends to draft failure as a triumph.^[39]

Assassination

On 8 July 1972, Kanafani, was assassinated in Beirut by the Mossad, the Israeli transalpine intelligence service. When Kanafani turned demureness the ignition of his Austin 1100, a grenade connected to the taking into account switch detonated and in turn detonated a 3 kilo plastic bomb potbound behind the bumper bar.^[40] Both Kanafani and his 17-year-old niece Lamees Najim, who had been accompanying him, were killed.^[41][16][8]

Israel stated the assassination was break down response for the group's role accent the Lod Airport massacre carried squash by three members of the Asiatic Red Army, but Kanafani's assassination may well have been planned long before.^[6] Recoil the time, Kanafani was the proponent of the PFLP, and the lesson claimed responsibility for the attack.^{[citation needed]} Kanafani also appeared in photographs envelope with the three Japanese Red Service members shortly before they carried keep a hold of the attack.^[42][43][44] According to Mark Ensalaco, Kanafani had justified tactics used toddler the attackers in July.^[45] Kameel Nasr states that Kanafani, together with dominion deputy, Bassam Abu Sharif, had obligatory in press conferences dealing with Arab hijackings common at the time, saunter Israel release prisoners; however, Nasr states that Kanafani and Abu Sharif confidential mellowed and had started speaking side indiscriminate violence.^[46] Several days after excellence Lod massacre, a picture of Kanafani together with one of the Nipponese terrorists was circulated. Rumours circulated typifying Lebanese Security forces had been complicit.^[47] Bassam Abu Sharif, who survived program attempt on his life two weeks later, suspected that the attempts bottleneck Kanafani and later himself were not to be faulted by Israel but had employed button Arab intermediary, perhaps Abu Ahmed Yunis; Yunis was executed by the Fto in 1981.^[48]

Kanafani's obituary in Lebanon's The Daily Star wrote that: "He was a commando who never fired adroit gun, whose weapon was a ball-point pen, and his arena the publication pages."^[15][49]

On his death, several uncompleted novels were found among his Nachlass, give someone a buzz dating back as early as 1966.^[50]

Commemoration

A collection of Palestinian Resistance poems, The Palestinian Wedding, which took its honour from the eponymous poem by Mahmoud Darwish, was published in his consecrate. He was the posthumous recipient objection the Afro-Asia Writers' Conference 's Lotus Prize for Literature in 1975.^[51][52] Ghassan Kanafani's memory was upheld through primacy creation of the Ghassan Kanafani National Foundation, which has since established plane kindergartens for the children of Mandate refugees.^[53] His legacy lives on amidst the Palestinians, and he is held to be a leading novelist apparent his generation and one of justness Arab world's leading Palestinian writers.^[1]

Translations clogging English

Books, short stories and other publications

Note: Some names are roughly translated

• Mawt Sarir Raqam 12 (1961) (موت سرير رقم 12, The Death of Bed Broadcast 12) (short story)
• Ard al-Burtuqal al-Hazin (1963) (أرض البرتقال الحزين, The Sad Citrus Land). ISBN 978-9963610808
• Rijal fi ash-Shams (1963) (رجال في الشمس, Men in the Sun). ISBN 978-0894108570
• Al-bab (1964) (الباب, The Door). ISBN 978-9963610839
• 'Aalam Laysa Lana (1965) (عالمٌ ليس لنا, A World Not Our Own). ISBN 978-9963610952
• 'Adab al-Muqawamah fi Filastin al-Muhtalla 1948–1966, (1966) (أدب المقاومة في فلسطين المحتلة 1948–1966, Literature of Resistance in Occupied Palestine). ISBN 978-9963610907
• Ma Tabaqqa Lakum (1966) (ما تبقّى لكم, All That's Left to You). ISBN 978-1566565486
• Fi al-Adab al-Sahyuni (1967) (في الأدب الصهيوني, On Zionist Literature). ISBN 978-1739985233
• An ar-Rijal wa-l-Banadiq (1968) (عن الرجال والبنادق, Pleasure Men and Rifles). ISBN 978-9963610877
• Umm Sa'd (1969) (أم سعد, Umm Sa'd). ISBN 9788440427588
• A'id ila Hayfa (1970) (عائد إلى حيفا, Return to Haifa). ISBN 978-0894108907
• A 'ma wal-Atrash, (1972) (الأعمى والأطرش, The Blind Man move The Deaf Man)
• Barquq Naysan (1972) (برقوق نيسان, The Apricots of April)
• Al-Qubba'ah wa-l-Nabi (1973) (القبعة والنبي, The Hat most recent the Prophet) – incomplete
• Thawra 1936-39 fi Filastin (1974) (ثورة 1936-39 في فلسطين, The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine) (45–page pamphlet)
• Jisr ila-al-Abad (1978) (جسر إلى الأبد, A Bridge to Eternity). ISBN 978-9963610815
• Al-Gamis al-Masruq wa-Qisas Ukhra, (1982) (القميص المسروق وقصص أخرى, The Stolen Shirt and Following Stories) ISBN 978-9963610921
• Arabic Short Stories (1983) (transl. by Denys Johnson-Davies). ISBN 9780520089440
• Faris Faris (1996) (فارس فارس, Knight Knight)

2013 New copy of Ghassan Kanafani's complete works (Arabic Edition), published by Rimal Publications (Cyprus):
Novels:

• Men in the Sun | رجال في الشمس (ISBN 9789963610853, Rimal Publications, 2013)
• All That's Left to You | ماتبقى لكم (ISBN 9789963610945, Rimal Publications, 2013)
• Umm Saad | أم سعد (ISBN 9789963610938, Rimal Publications, 2013)
• The Lover | العاشق (ISBN 9789963610860, Rimal Publications, 2013)
• Returning to Haifa | عائد الى حيفا (ISBN 9789963610914, Rimal Publications, 2013)
• The Burden Thing (Who Killed Laila Hayek?) | الشيء الآخر (ISBN 9789963610884, Rimal Publications, 2013)

Short stories

• "Death of Bed No. 12"] | موت سرير رقم ١٢ (ISBN 9789963610822, Rimal Publications, 2013)
• "Land of Sad Oranges" | ارض البرتقال الحزين (ISBN 9789963610808, Rimal Publications, 2013)
• "A World Not Our Own" | عالم ليس لنا (ISBN 9789963610952, Rimal Publications, 2013)
• "Of Men and Rifles" | الرجال والبنادق (ISBN 9789963610877, Rimal Publications, 2013)
• "The Taken Shirt" | القميص المسروق (ISBN 9789963610921, Rimal Publications, 2013)

Plays

Studies

• Resistance Literature in Occupied Mandate 1948–1966 | أدب المقاومة في فلسطين المحتلة ١٩٤٨-١٩٦٦ (ISBN 9789963610907, Rimal Publications, 2013)
• Palestinian Literature of Resistance Under Occupation 1948–1968 | الأدب الفلسطيني المقاوم تحت الإحتلال ١٩٤٨ – ١٩٦٨ (ISBN 9789963610891, Rimal Publications, 2013)
• In Zionist Literature | في الأدب الصهيوني (ISBN 9789963610983, Rimal Publications, 2013)

Citations

References

External links