Men in the Sun

Men in the Sun (Arabic: رجال في الشمس Rijāl fīsh-Shams) is a novel by Palestinian writer and political activist Ghassan Kanafani (1936–72), originally published in 1963.^[1]

Kanafani was a Palestinian refugee from the 1948 Palestinian-Zionist conflict.^[2] He was born in 1936 in Acre, Palestine.^[3] After the war his family fled to Damascus.^[4] As an adult, Kanafani worked as a teacher and journalist. In 1969, he founded the weekly newspaper of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP): al-Hadaf.^[5] He died in a car bomb in July 1972, along with his niece.^[6]

Men in the Sun follows three Palestinian refugees seeking to travel from the refugee camps in Lebanon, where they cannot find work, to Kuwait where they hope to find work as laborers in the oil boom. The three men each arrange with a clerk at a local store to be smuggled to Kuwait by a driver. The men are treated gruffly and are humiliated by the process. Once they finally arrange for travel, they are forced to ride in the back of the truck across the desert on their way to Kuwait. At several check points, the men hide in a large, empty, water tank in the stifling mid-day heat as the driver arranges paperwork to get through. After going through the last check point, within easy driving distance of the travelers' ultimate goal of Kuwait, the driver opens the tank to let the men out only to find they have died.

Men in the Sun has been translated into many languages. Its description of the hardships and insecurity of Palestinian refugee life, and its political and psychological subtext (subtly criticizing corruption, political passivity and defeatism within Arab and Palestinian society) had an impact on the Arab cultural and political debate of the time; it also uses modernist narrative structures and storytelling methods.

Men in the Sun has been filmed as al-Makhduun (The Deceived), by Egyptian director Tawfiq Saleh. The film was banned in several Arab countries due to its criticisms of Arab governments.

References

1. ^ Ghassan Kanafani, "Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories", pp. 9-15
2. ^ "Introduction" by Hilary Kilpatrick in _Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories_, p. 9
3. ^ "Introduction" by Hilary Kilpatrick in _Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories_, p. 9
4. ^ "Introduction" by Hilary Kilpatrick in _Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories_, p. 9
5. ^ "Introduction" by Hilary Kilpatrick in _Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories_, p. 9
6. ^ "Introduction" by Hilary Kilpatrick in _Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories_, p. 9