Men in the Sun
Ghassan Kanafani
Three Palestinians suffocate in a water tanker crossing the desert toward Kuwait — the defining novella of Palestinian exile.
Three men from different generations — Abu Qais, Assad, and Marwan — each leave the camps of exile to seek work in Kuwait, paying a smuggler to carry them across the desert hidden in an empty water tanker. At the final checkpoint, delayed by a mocking delay of the guards, the driver opens the tank to find them dead. His final cry — “Why didn’t you knock on the sides of the tank?” — is among the most famous endings in modern Arabic literature.
Written in 1962 and published in 1963, the novella indicted not only the dispossession of 1948 but the passivity and venality that Kanafani believed perpetuated it. The English volume from Lynne Rienner pairs it with other essential stories, including “The Land of Sad Oranges” and “Letter from Gaza,” in Hilary Kilpatrick’s translation.
About the author
Ghassan Kanafani (1936–1972) was born in Acre and displaced in 1948. A novelist, journalist, and artist, he became spokesperson of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and editor of Al-Hadaf. He was assassinated in Beirut in 1972. His works have been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Details
- Published in Arabic, 1963; English translation by Hilary Kilpatrick, Lynne Rienner Publishers
- Basis of the 1972 film The Deceived (Al-Makhdu’un)
The edition
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