Ghassan Kanafani's 1962 work Men in the Sun features three Palestinian refugees of different generations en route to what they believe will amount to relative freedom and prosperity in Kuwait. Many Palestinians have sought lives beyond the refugee camps, some attaining prominence as advocates in Europe and the Americas, but Kanafani's protagonists lack such lofty ambitions. The aging Abu Qais, frustrated Assad and young Marwan are Everyman characters, seeking only jobs, food and perhaps better lives for their children. A deeply textured, moving literary work emerges as the men smuggle themselves across borders towards a common fate.

Though Kanafani's story is one of political disenfranchisement and suffering imposed by political powers, he avoids alienating readers through ideological rhetoric. The context to Men in the Sun is a widely understood (or at least fairly easily referenced) one, and educated readers would likely find any gratuitous background information contained in the story to be redundant. As the issues surrounding the conflict remain contentious and often divisive, the assumption of a didactic tone would turn off readers not

already sympathetic to Kanafani's outspoken pan-Arabism and socialist viewpoint. Kanafani realizes that there are many windows into an individual's experience. Through this personal, rather than political, approach, any reader hurt by betrayal, falsehood, loneliness or despair will find themselves identifying with a story created by and about Palestinians.

Some aspects of Abu Qais, Assad and Marwan's situation and suffering finds parallels in other 20th century conflicts. Their seemingly permanent displacement and rejection by neighboring states evokes the constant, zigzagging flight of the Tutsi and Hutu populations of Burundi and Rwanda through years of reciprocal genocides, as the former Zaire, Tanzania and Uganda repelled floods of refugees. It also, in a sense, echoes the situation of European Jews during the Holocaust, when restricted entrance to unoccupied European states (and the United States) propelled mass immigration to Palestine even among non-Zionists. Even for readers unfamiliar with the specifics of the Arab-Israeli conflict, broader themes of violence, poverty and disenfranchisement should resonate.

Kanafani primarily intends to bring Palestinian suffering to the forefront of the A

Some common words found in the essay are:
Abul Khaizuran's, Marwan Everyman, Palestinians Sun, European United, Palestinians Traditionally, Assad Marwan's, Ghassan Kanafani's, Ustaz Selim, Middle Eastern, Kuwait Palestinians, abu qais, palestinian refugees, refugee camps,
Approximate Word count = 819
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)