Men in the sun and other palestinian stories

First published in 1962, Men in the Sun is both a classic of Arab literature, and of what Kanafani himself would term ´resistance literature´. Three Palestinian men embark on a brutal and treacherous odyssey across the Iraqi desert to Kuwait, not for liberation but material betterment. Their driver, a jaded, fat, former freedom fighter, living with his own compromises and contradictions, makes for a garrulous if cavalier companion. Both the indifferent brutality of border bureaucracy and the blank aggression of the sun see that things grow steadily more stark. The author´s ardent politics are apparent throughout, but the novel´s characters are their own beings: ambivalent, conflicted creatures of context. While breezily conversational, with disarming, dreamy strokes of lyricism, this short novel delivers a shuddering and grounding dose of true horror. As well as the titular novella, the book features six short stories, including the timelessly resonant ´Letter From Gaza´ , Kanafani´s first published work, written when he twenty, and the essential ´The Land of Sad Oranges´.