On Men in the Sun
Kanafani, Ghassan. Men in the Sun: and Other Palestinian Stories. Reissue ed. Translated by Hilary Kipatrick. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998. pp. 117. Paperback.
This is an incredible collection of Kanafani’s novella “Men in the Sun” along with some of his short stories. “Men in the Sun” is plainly the standout; it feels a lot like Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath until the way it ends, rich with symbolism, with a sense of impotence, figurative and literal, running all through it. The rest of the stories are more variable, but I really liked “Falcon,” dense with symbolism, and “A Hand in the Grave.”