Living On Through His Words: All About Palestinian Literary Author Ghassan Kanafani

“All along the way there were orange groves. A sense of fear and anxiety spread over everyone. The car moved with difficulty over the wet soil, and from a distance, we heard the sound of gunshots as if bidding us farewell.” – Ghassan Kanafani, The Land Of Sad Oranges

Ghassan Fayiz Kanafani is a Palestinian political leader, literary figure, and journalist, born in Akka, during British rule. He is the author of Men in the Sun (1962), Umm Sa’ad (1969), Return to Haifa (1970), and The Land of Sad Oranges 1962 and a pioneer of the resistance literature of Palestine. In 1948 during the great Nakba he was forced to exile along with 700.000 Palestinians. Years later, he shared memories of his childhood trauma in his short essay ‘The Land of Sad Oranges’.

During his university years, his companion George Habash who founded the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine introduced him to politics. Kanafani would later become its spokesperson, and by the late 1960s, he had become a celebrated intellectual and a representative of PFLP which was targeting operations in Israel. Something that will later be the cause of Kanafani’s death, or rather, his brutal assassination.  

On May 30, 1972, a port near Tel Aviv was attacked, 26 people were killed. The author’s name became linked to the attack. On July 8, 1972, the 36-year-old Kanafani was assassinated after three kilos of bombs were planted in his car. Killing him and his niece. The Israeli Mossad later claimed responsibility for the assassination.

WE SAID THIS: Don’t Miss...Award-Winning Palestinian Poet Mosab Abo Tuha Kidnapped By IDF While Fleeing To South Gaza