- Muʿīn Basīsū (1927 – 1984, Palestine) in his play Shamshūn wa Dalīlah (‘Samson and Delilah’, 1971) depicts the tragedy of Palestinians losing their homes in face of an ever so strong Israel though the story of a Palestinian family. The members of this family have different views on what must be done: while one of the sons, Māzin, flees because he can no longer tolerate life under Israelis, ʿAṣīm, the second son maintains that armed revolution is the only way out. The second part of the play deals with the 1967 defeat. Rīm, the sister, is in the hands of the Israelis and pressured by a present-day Samson to join them. However, she refuses and is seen as the new Delilah (reference) (also in R: Religion and Sectarianism: Christians and Christianity).
- Jabrā Ibrāhīm Jabrā (1920 – 1994, Palestine) – al-Bahthʿan Walid Masʿūd (1978, English trans. In Search of Walid Masoud, 2000). This novel has often been read as a critique on the intellectual in the aftermath of the 1967 defeat. After its main character disappears, the novel portrays other characters’ use of different sources to find him. In the novel the line between the intellectual and freedom fighter (fidāʾī) blurs, as the main character shows to be both. According to Halibi the novel illustrates the demise of a generation of Arab intellectuals who witnessed the collapse of their modernist project (reference).
- Nabīl Khūrī (1929 – 2002, Palestine) – al-Raḥīl (‘The departure’, 1969). Follows Abū ʿAdnān when he flees from his home during the 1930s into exile in Bethlehem in 1948, and then again to a refugee camp in Jordan in 1967 (also in R: Refugees: Refugees in Arab Countries: Palestinian Refugees and 1948 al-Nakbah).
- Aḥmad Abū Salīm (1965-, Palestine / Jordan) – Kwāntūm (‘Quantum’, 2018). This novel takes place in Jerusalem and is set between 1967 and the 1993 Oslo Accord. It describes the great defeat of 1967 and how it affected the city of Jerusalem, one of the consequences being that its inhabitants each started to emphasize a different element of its past and its identity. To see the city in its fullness and to understand every aspect of its development, the novel proposes a quantum vision is needed, as developed by the quantum theory of Max Planck, hence the title of the novel (reference) (also in C: Cities: Palestinian Israel: Jerusalem).
- Rashād Abū Shāwir (1974-, Lebanon) – al-ʿUshshāq (‘The lovers’, 1977) pictures life in Jericho between the 1940s and 1967. Its storyline encompasses the 1948 al-Nakbah and the 1967 al-Naksah, and their immediate consequences (also in 1948 al-Nakbah).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Ali al-Raʿi. 1992. “Arabic Drama since the thirties.” In Modern Arabic Literature. eds. Muhammad Mustafa Badawi. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 358-404, p. 367
- Zeina G. Halibi. 2010. Writing Melancholy: The Death of the Intellectual in Modern Arabic Literature. PhD diss. University of Texas at Austin, p. 33-34
- Rashād Abū Shāwir. 2018 “Fī ‘Kwāntūm’ al-Riwāʾī Yuḥfar fī al-ʿAmāq.” www.thakafamag.com, 31 July 2018 https://thakafamag.com/?p=14763 (last accessed 30 November 2021)