This obscure feeling that you had as you left Gaza, this small feeling must grow into a giant deep within you. It must expand, you must seek it in order to find yourself, here among the ugly debris of defeat.
I won’t come to you. But you, return to us! Come back, to learn from Nadia’s leg, amputated from the top of the thigh, what life is and what existence is worth.
Come back, my friend! We are all waiting for you.

________________________________________________________________________________

ABOUT THE BOOK

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 excerpt 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.

Born in Acre (northern Palestine) in 1936, Ghassan Kanafani was a major spokesman for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and founding editor of its weekly magazine Al-Hadaf. His novels, short stories, and plays have been published in sixteen languages. He was killed in a car-bomb explosion in Beirut in 1972.