Ghassan Kanafani: Selected Political Writings

“No other author has been as profoundly formative for me as Kanafani” Mohammed El-Kurd, poet, writer and journalist, author of Rifqa

“I cannot think of a better collection to guide anyone seeking a moral role in the struggle for the liberation of Palestine” Ilan Pappé, historian and author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

“As relevant today as he was in the 1960s and 1970s” Ghassan Abu Sittah, award-winning surgeon, humanitarian and educator

Ghassan Kanafani is perhaps the greatest Palestinian novelist, whose books including Men in the Sun and Returning to Haifa documented the horrors of war and occupation. He was also a leading political thinker, strategist and revolutionary. Here, his writings on politics, history, national liberation and the media are collected in English for the first time.

Featuring new commentary from leading writers, this collection is a testament to Kanafani’s continuing relevance. His work remains a vital touchstone for revolutionary Palestinian struggle and anti-colonial thought.

Ghassan Kanafani is one of the most well-known Arab writers and journalists of the past century. Born in Palestine in 1936, Kanafani and his family were forced to flee his homeland during the Nakba – after which he lived and worked in Damascus, Kuwait and finally, from 1960, Beirut. Kanafani was assassinated in 1972 by a car bomb planted by Israeli agents. His writings have inspired generations of Palestinians and those standing in solidarity with their cause.

Louis Brehony is an award-winning researcher on political culture, musician, writer and activist. He is the author of Palestinian Music in Exile and director of the documentary film Kofia: A Revolution Through Music. Tahrir Hamdi is a Professor of Resistance Literature at the Arab Open University, Jordan. She is author of the prizewinning Imagining Palestine, and assistant editor of Arab Studies Quarterly.