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The National
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The National
Six Palestinian novels that chronicle the Nakba's enduring legacy
Nakba Day on May 15 marks the 1948 forced displacement of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homeland. It remains an open wound in the region – one that continues to shape its politics and society across generations. It has also served as a powerful catalyst for some of the most inspired Arabic literature of the past six decades, particularly by Palestinian authors. Many of these works are highlighted in The National's list of the most important Arabic novels of the 20th and 21st centuries. From narratives that delve into the psychological and existential wounds left by the Nakba, to stories of resilience and survival in the face of a persistent sense of exile, these novels offer an insight into how Palestinian writers have used literature both to confront the pain of the past and to carry the Palestinian cause forward for new generations. Here are six books to read. In his searing masterpiece, Ghassan Kanafani offers a piercing glimpse into the aching dislocation caused by the Nakba. The novel follows three Palestinian men on an arduous journey from Iraq to Kuwait in search of work during the oil boom of the 1960s. Their trek becomes a subtle allegory for the complacency of Palestinian and regional political figures in the aftermath of the Nakba, and how the failure of the ruling class contributed to the despair surrounding the Palestinian right of return. More than 60 years since its publication, Men in the Sun remains a landmark of Arabic fiction, with one of the most haunting and talked-about endings in modern Arab literature. Equal parts biography and treatise, In Search of Walid Masoud examines the psychological and existential wounds caused by the Nakba. The plot centres on the disappearance of the titular character – a Palestinian intellectual and political activist uprooted to Baghdad after the 1948 tragedy. Woven through snippets of testimony from family, friends and colleagues, the book offers an understanding of who Walid Masoud is, and how his personal struggles are rooted in a deeper search for identity. The fact that readers never get a complete picture of him alludes to the ongoing sense of dislocation that comes from being forced to leave one's home. A psychiatric ward in a Bethlehem hospital is home to a group of patients whose stories – from the tragic to the absurd – reflect the fractured reality of a divided city. Their experiences point to the fraying mental health brought on by the Nakba and the continued failure of political leaders to address its legacy. In a 2015 interview with The National, Alaysa described the novel as an attempt to expand society's understanding of madness. 'It's not just about people who are suffering from a condition, but also a sickness when it comes to intellectual thought,' he said. A triumph of dazzling technique, Destinies is composed in four parts, each representing a concerto movement. The structure allows Al-Madhoun to tackle a pair of intertwining stories – the Holocaust and the Nakba, each a source of trauma for Jews and Palestinians respectively. Through the daily struggles of Palestinians in exile and those forced to assume Israeli citizenship, the novel explores how trauma shapes everyday life and how the politics of victimhood shift over time. This is a novel rooted in the displacement caused by the Nakba and shaped by characters descended from its early refugees. At the Baqaa camp in Jordan, Hawa finds purpose in tailoring after being mentored by the widowed Qamar. Through their shared work with velvet fabric, the two women exchange hopes and dreams in a setting that has long stifled such ambitions for the generations before them. The winner of the 2024 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, this book follows the story of Nur, a Palestinian archaeologist and the son of displaced families, who grew up in a refugee camp in Ramallah. After discovering an Israeli identity card in an abandoned coat, he assumes the identity of its owner and gains a glimpse of life beyond the barrier. In doing so, he reflects on the long-term effects of the Nakba on displaced families and the urgent need to preserve Palestinian heritage in a society intent on erasing its presence.
Middle East Eye
10-03-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
These four books show how Israeli-American savagery is on the losing side of history
The publication in recent months of four books on the Israel-Palestine conflict has given the world a solid moral platform to begin holding genocidal Zionism accountable for the mass killing and annihilation that has unfolded in Gaza. These books could prove even more important than the judgements of international courts. While they are preceded by countless publications on the subject by Palestinian thinkers in multiple languages and on multiple platforms, these four books have two particular features in common: none were written by a Palestinian, Arab or Muslim, and all were published in the shadow of the Gaza genocide. To be sure, Palestinians themselves remain the principal spokespeople for their cause, providing the most eloquent case against the historic savageries they have endured for generations. The Palestinian people have given the world such brilliant thinkers as Mahmoud Darwish, Ghassan Kanafani, Fadwa Tuqan, Adania Shibli, Michel Khleifi, Refaat Alareer, May Masri, Mona Hatoum, Elia Suleiman, Emily Jacir, Kamal Aljafari, Mosab Abu Toha, Nizar Hassan, and countless others who do not need anyone to speak for them. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters The preeminent scholar Edward Said alone was an institution who radically altered the whole language of how the world thinks about the savageries of global colonialism, particularly in his Palestinian homeland. Generation after generation, Palestinian artists, filmmakers, scholars, poets, novelists and revolutionary thinkers have turned the Palestinian cause into a global uprising. So if our attention now turns to four non-Palestinian authors, it does not mean Palestinians needed them. But the world needed them, for the globalisation of the Palestinian cause is now a moral imperative without borders. Interrogating Zionism The constellation of these four non-Palestinian thinkers - Rabbi Shaul Magid, American authors Peter Beinart and Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Indian writer Pankaj Mishra - points to the unfolding of a different trajectory that sustains hope amid the terrorising darkness, in which US President Donald Trump sits next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, claiming that Gaza belongs to them. The sheer obscenity of this scene should not distract from the larger picture, in which a different vision of the world is fast dawning. Follow Middle East Eye's live coverage of the Israel-Palestine war Two of these four books are by prominent Jewish critical thinkers, one of them a rabbi. The third is a by a renowned African American author, and the fourth by a globally celebrated Indian intellectual. No hasbara propaganda machinery, Zionist outfit nor corrupt gang of US politicians can dismiss, deny or demonise their work as 'antisemitism'. Antisemitism is a real western sickness, as is Islamophobia. Jews and Muslims are united in their struggles against both maladies. The first text, Magid's The Necessity of Exile (2023), examines the question of 'exile' in a Judaic context, and uses this to interrogate the entire project of Zionism. He puts the idea of exile in both historic and contemporary terms, for the issues that Jewish communities around the world face are not merely political, but go to the heart of their ancestral faith. Decolonisation is a force of history that will unfold and dismantle the apparatuses of colonial powers - past, present and future How could any decent human being, particularly a moral Jewish person, stand by and witness generations of Palestinians being slaughtered in their name, and remain silent? Magid's book is historic evidence that such principled Jewish thinkers have never been silent. The second book, Beinart's Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza (2025), is a reckoning by an eloquent Jewish American thinker of the dangers facing his faith after it has been used and abused to commit mass murder, war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and now genocide. Central to this book is the fact that it was written by a former committed Zionist, one who was born and raised advocating for the Israeli apartheid state, and who only later in life realised the state and ideology he was rooting for was a murderous killing machine. We might ask how this deeply learned and cultivated man previously missed the groundswell of Palestinian voices crying out for justice, chief among them Said's globally admired scholarship right here at Columbia University in New York. But still, better late than never. Beinart is a widely admired Jewish intellectual, and rightly so. His eloquent words reach far and deep into Jewish and non-Jewish corners of this country. He is a much-needed voice in a global chorus that demands solidarity with Palestinians. Historic uprising As for Coates, I have already written on the significance of his book The Message (2024), though in terms only significant to his own liberation from deceitful Zionist propaganda. Placed in the context of these four books, Coates brings the entire force of multi-generational African American liberation struggles to bear witness to the terror of genocidal Zionism in Palestine. But the real fire comes from outside the US. Entirely removed from the American domain, and thus far more global and liberated in his critical thinking, Mishra puts a radically different spin on the world's defiance of complicity with the Israeli genocide. In The World After Gaza (2025), Mishra shares with readers how he, too, began his political consciousness convinced by his Hindu nationalist household of the righteousness of the Israeli cause, even sporting a picture of Israeli warlord Moshe Dayan on his bedroom wall. He thus begins his book by entering the confessional cabinet and sharing details of his deeply Zionist upbringing. How Ta-Nehisi Coates broke free of liberal Zionism Read More » Anytime I read such confessionals, I wonder: what planet did these dear and learned friends live on before they finally saw the light? But at this moment in history, it no longer matters. What matters is Mishra's astounding ability to be not polemic, but persuasive. He speaks for a common decency based on a shared history, in which both Palestinians and Israelis can find not just a political, but a moral homeland. The sheer magnitude of Israeli savagery in Gaza and the occupied West Bank; the barefaced vulgarities of Israeli warlords and American presidents, capped off with the criminal thuggeries of the Trump administration - these have finally awakened the world, across religious and political divides. What these timely books reveal is a turning tide. From here, the world cannot plunge into another sea of ignorance or apathy. This historic uprising against the vicious recycling of western colonial powers in Palestine will never stop. Decolonisation is a force of history that will unfold and dismantle the apparatuses of colonial powers - past, present and future. The world looks at the ridiculous sight of Trump and his clan of kleptocratic billionaires with contempt and defiance. This is not a battle between Jews and non-Jews, nor even between Israelis and Palestinians. This is a battle between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, fact and fiction. All decent human beings, Jews and Palestinians in particular, are on one side, facing an army of deceit and violence on the other. The battlefronts are crystal clear, and as Martin Luther King Jr once said: 'The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.' Period. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
