Summary
The leading novelist in the Arab world, in Said’s account, whose novels had always been profoundly Egyptian and who made the Palestinian emergence the climax of his 1973 novel of no-war, no-peace Egypt, Hub taht al Mattar (Love in the Rain) (title as printed in the original at PDF p.178 / printed p.157; the text copy garbles the italic title to “Hub tahi al Maitar”).
Details
- The last scene of Mahfouz’s 1973 novel (fiction) introduces the Palestinian guerrilla Abu’l Nasr al Kabir (Father of Great Victory), whose views on the most recent American initiative are that one must take a long view of events happening now (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.177-178 / printed p.156-157).
- Said reads Mahfouz, an unregenerate ironist, as remarking two things simultaneously: how armed Palestinians had suddenly acquired the role of revolutionary spokesman for Arabs, and how revolutionary promises and rhetoric had already become parodies of themselves; the father of victory was still only a father in potens, although any political reckoning now would have to include the Palestinians (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.178 / printed p.157).
- Another irony Said notes: Abu’l Nasr, Mahfouz’s Palestinian guerrilla (fiction), lives in Cairo, not Nazareth or Nablus — Palestinian identity seemed to have sprung up assertively outside Palestine (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.178 / printed p.157).
Related pages
The Question of Palestine, Mahmoud Darwish, Palestine Liberation Organization