Ghassan Kanafani was born in Akka, Palestine, in 1936. He died when an explosive devise planted by an Israeli operative, detonated under his car on July 8th, 1972. His wife Annie, a Danish national, described the event as such:
“…We used to go shopping together every Saturday morning, on that day he accompanied his niece Lamees. A few minutes after they left, I heard the sound of a huge explosion. I ran but only saw remanence of our exploded small car. Lamees was a few meters away from the spot, but I could not find Ghassan. I hoped to find him injured, but I only found his left leg. I was devastated, and our son Fayez, started knocking his head against the wall. Little Layla was crying: Baba…Baba… I gathered his remains, the Beiruti escorted him to his last resting place at the Shuhada Cemetery where he was buried next to Lamees who loved him and died with him.”
Kanafani is a prominent literary figure in Arabic Literature. His works were translated to many different languages. During his short life he enriched the Arabic library by contributing a valuable collection of writings, varying from novel to short story to literary research and political essays. “The Land of the Sad Orange” is one of his early stories. It depicts the impact of deracination on the Palestinians after Israeli forces took over their country in 1948. In this story Kanafani mixes artistic reality with history. Though the story tells the suffering of a middle-class family, it is exemplary of the experience of thousands of displaced families, who suffered the humiliation of leaving their country and living in poverty, following the 1948 defeat of the Arab armies and the creation of the state of Israel.
You can download a translation by Nejmeh Khalil-Habib here:
The Land of Sad Oranges
You can listen to the story in Arabic on our YouTube channel:
