Author Spotlight: Ghassan Kanafani
“You have something in this world, so stand for it.”
Ghassan Kanafani (1936-72) was an acclaimed Palestinian revolutionary, journalist, and author. In 1948, his family was forced out of their home by Israeli militants and relocated to Damascus, Syria. There, he worked part-time to help provide for his family while completing his education. In 1952, he obtained a UNRWA teaching certificate and began instructing over 1,200 Palestinian refugee children in the arts. It was in Damascus that he first began composing short narratives to share and contextualize the stories of his students.
Kanafani went on to become a leader and editor for The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and a renowned socialist, Palestinian independence, and anti-imperialist thinker. Despite the constant danger that he faced for expressing these views, he never compromised on his convictions. And his fearless activism should come as no surprise—his father was a lawyer fighting for Palestinian freedom and imbued the fires of rebellion in his children from a young age.
64 years ago this month, Kanafani was assassinated by Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence organization. They planted a 3kg explosive in his car which went off upon ignition, instantly killing him and his 17-year-old niece Lamees Najim.
Though they ended his life with a brutal active of violence, they will never be able to erase his ideas. Celebrate his memory and ideas today by engaging with selections from his body of literature:
Return to Haifa: The 1948 Nakba forced young couple Said and Safiyya from their home in Haifa. In 1967, the Six Day War reopened their their old city to them for the first time in nearly two decades, but nothing could prepare them for what they found upon their return.
Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories: Men in the Sun captures the journey of three Palestinian refugees from the refugee camps in Iraq to Kuwait, where they hope to find work as laborers in the oil boom. This volume also includes The Land of Sad Oranges, 'If You Were a Horse...' , A Hand in the Grave, The Falcon, Letter from Gaza, and an excerpt from Umm Saad.
Palestinian Resistance Literature Under Occupation, 1948-1968: Writing in the wake of Israel’s devastating territorial expansion in 1967, Kanafani elaborates his theory of resistance literature and offers a visceral account of life under occupation.
