- Imīl Ḥabībī (1922 – 1996, Palestine/Israel) – Ikhṭiyyah! (‘Pity!’, 1985) with nostalgia, this novella describes the transformation of the city of Haifa, the author’s home city, in the fifty decades from before 1948, until the time of writing, 1985. Its protagonist is a Palestinian woman, through which Ḥabībī reflects on his early childhood before the city became part of Israel: before the names of the streets changed and Hebrew became the common language.
- Ghassān Kanafānī (1936 – 1972, Palestine/Israel) – ʿĀʾid ilā Ḥayfā ( 1969, English trans in Returning to Haifa & Other Stories, 2000) describes the story of a couple, Saʿīd and Ṣafiyyah, who return to Haifa after the 1967 defeat (see 1967: al-Naksah) in search of their son who they lost during the 1948 Nakbah (see 1948: al-Nakbah). They find the city completely alien to their memory and their lost son Khaldūn adopted and raised by an Israeli family. Khaldūn, who serves in the Israeli army and is now named Duv, renounces his Palestinian parents (reference) (also in M: Movement: (E) migration, Refugees and Return: Return to Palestine).
- Majd Kayyāl (1990 -, Palestine/Israel) – Maʾsāt al-Sayyid Maṭar (‘Tragedy of Mr. Matar’, 2016). Divided in four chapters, ‘birth’, ‘childhood’, ‘trouble’, and ‘death’, this novel centers an unborn Arab schoolteacher in Haifa, Mr. Maṭar. The narrator, who symbolizes the Palestinian tragedy, specifically those of 1948 Palestinians, is not sure of what is true or false in the story-line which sheds light on a number of political and social issues in Haifa, including German military support to Israel and interreligious marriages. The October 2000 riots also take place in the novel, which won the Qattan Foundation Young Writer Award in 2015.
Refrences:
- Sumaya Alhaj Mohammad and Dania Meryan. 2019. “Ghassan Kanafani’s ‘Returning to Haifa’: tracing memory beyond the rubble”, Race & Class 61(3): 65-77, p. 67