But I could not do the work of writing a book, or even a long magazine article, if it were not also an aesthetic experience. It did all make sense at the end, but I would still recommend to reread it, so that one doesn't lose much of the story. The evaporation of the Arab dream to unite for the liberation of Palestine contributed to the rise of a separate Palestinian consciousness. In much of his fiction, Kanafani employs modernist narrative technique to focus on themes of alienation, exile, and national resistance. Overall it was a cohesive collection that breathed life into different lives, forcing the reader to feel and understand what is already difficult to communicate.

In 1939 he published al-Wa’y al-Qawmi (The National Consciousness), a volume of essays on national identity. Growing up in high school, it was required reading to read about the Holocaust and there were fiction books on the Holocaust in our curriculum.

Kanafani made a very good decision to introduce each of the three men, their background and their way of thinking, their different character and outlook on life in a separate chapter. There is no single formulation of trauma, it surrounds and is imbued in everything that they do since even before the Nakbah. Although he is a pivotal character, the driver, Abul Khaizuran, is not given his own section in the novella.

In the film, however, the victims knock continuously on the sides of the tank, crying, “We are here, we are dying, let us out, let us free,” Kanafani, who viewed the film several times before his death, did not disapprove of the altered ending (Harlow, pp. Khaizuran promises his three passengers that they will be inside the tanker for only seven minutes at the longest. The narrator initially does not understand the significance of leaving Yaffa for Akka—he was just a child—however, he is eventually confronted by the reality of exile and newfound refugee status.

I think we still should bang the walls of the tank,make noise and let the world hear our voice in every possible way. While Kanafani’s stay in Kuwait can be seen as his formative years, his period in Lebanon (1960–72) was productive in terms of literary as well as journalistic writings. This pain is encumbered though by the sense of betrayal that pervades almost every page of the book. This teacher was different from his predecessors; instead of mastery over how to pray, he knew how to use arms. This was my first Ghassan Kanafani read, and I was told that it would hurt to read this, and it did.

Now the smuggler, Abu-Abd, reminds young Assad of the danger of being a wanted man: “Do you think you’ll spend your life here hiding? Israel’s smashing of Egypt in the 1956 Sinai war displayed once again the overwhelming military superiority of Zionism and the folly of hoping that any Arab state would liberate Palestine from its Zionist occupiers.

The silliness of the entire situation, the absolute ridiculousness of men, their conversations, their play at authority and power.