On G. Kanafani’s 41st death anniversary

A number of Palestinian and Arab cultural and media centres recently marked the 41st death anniversary of the late Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani who was assassinated in Beirut in 1972 by the Israeli Mossad along with his niece. The Israeli occupation authorities were infuriated by his writings which had the same effect as the weapons directed to the Israeli occupation army, so they decided to murder him to silence his free voice, but they failed to achieve their sinister objective, because Ghassan’s writing remained an inexhaustible source of inspiration for successive Palestinian and Arab generations.

Needless to say that Ghassan is one of the most creative writers not only at the Palestinian level, but at the Arab and international levels. Arab literary critics believe that one of the most important factors behind Ghassan’s excellence and distinction was his ability to document and record the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation depicting the Palestinian suffering as a result of the racist Israeli measures taken by successive occupation governments against them.

Another important factor that greatly contributed to Ghassan’s creativity was his precise depiction of reality and foresight which were crystal clear in many of his works.

However, the most significant feature that made him a unique literary phenomenon was the launching of a new literary genre, namely resistance literature along with other outstanding Palestinian writers in the 1960s and the 1970s such as Mahmoud Darwish and Samih al-Qaasem.

Despite his short lifetime, Ghassan was a prolific writer as left 18 books ranging between novels, short stories and plays in addition to hundreds of political articles that exposed the wicked Zionist thought and racist practices. His objective writings made him one of the key symbols of the Palestinian and Arab struggle against Zionism.

Some of his works were adapted to feature films including “Men in the Sun” and “What Remains for You”, while others were presented on the stage of some Arab and European theatres. Due to their importance, Ghassan’s works were translated into more than 17 languages and published in 20 countries. His novels, short stories, plays and essays were also collected and published in four volumes posthumously.

The late writer accorded special attention to children. He wrote many stories in which children are the heroes. A collection of his short stories was published in Beirut, in 1978, under the title “Ghassan Kanafani’s Children”. The English translation, first published in 1984 and republished in 2000, was entitled “Palestine’s Children”.

Apart from his great literary works, Ghassan was the founder of “al-Hadaf” magazine through which he managed to disturb the Zionist political and cultural circles through exposing their sinister plans against the Palestinian and Arab people.

K.Q.

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