Novel Men in the Sun

Novel Men in the Sun

Ghassan Kanafani wrote the novel Men in the Sun while he was in the city of Beirut, in 1962. This novel reflects the story of the entire Palestinian people, as a result of the existence of the occupation, and the novel Men in the Sun is a picture of a lost person in refugee camps and displacement, as well as a picture of a person who loses his identity. He does not know where the escape and refuge are, and Kanafani portrayed this suffering through three characters of different ages, and the novel showed how time denied these men, so they had only to leave their land in search of another place, as they faced the intense heat in the reservoir of death, while they were waiting for the desired hope to find a place. somewhere under the sun.

The events of the novel Men in the Sun

The novel "Men in the Sun" revolves around four heroes: Abu al-Qais, As'ad, Abu al-Khaizairan, and Marwan. These men were united by the fact that each of them had a problem of his own, in addition to the problem of their motherland, Palestine. They represented the state of individual salvation in isolation from the group and the masses. The Palestinian, and their fate has become a fiasco, and destruction in the desert after they lost all means of livelihood, and all this because of the Zionist occupation. He is Abu Al-Khazairan, who is the Palestinian water tanker driver, and he belongs to the same village to which Abu Al-Qais belongs. After a discussion that took place between him and the three men, it was agreed that they would be smuggled for an amount less than those offered by other smugglers, and this was on the condition that they go down to the tank for a few minutes at Crossing the Iraqi and Kuwaiti borders, and expelling them from it after completing the required procedures.

They agreed to this condition, despite the summer heat; For the lack of options before them, and they have suffered a lot on their journey; Where the high temperature and darkness, and the suffering increased when they entered the reservoir for the first time on the Iraqi border; They would have lost their lives had it not been for Abu Al-Khazairan rushing to save them at the last moments, and upon the arrival of the Kuwaiti border, Abu Al-Khazayn returned and brought them into the reservoir, and this time it took him a long time to complete the entry transaction; Due to the emergence of a long talk collected by border men; This is due to their prior knowledge of him, and as soon as he returned, he found that they had become lifeless corpses, and the novel ended with a phrase on the tongue of Abi Al-Khazaran (Why did you not knock on the walls of the tank?).

Ghassan kanfani

Ghassan Kanafani is the author of the novel Men in the Sun. He was born in Acre in 1936 AD, and moved to Damascus with his family in 1948 AD. His father was a lawyer who pleaded often in national cases, especially during the Palestinian revolutions. Ghassan worked as a novelist, storyteller, and journalist, and was a politician affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He was assassinated on July 1972, XNUMX, in the Hazmieh area near Beirut. Among his novels: What is Left for You, Umm Saad, Returning to Haifa, The Other Thing, The Lover, The Blind and the Deaf, and The Plum of April.