Ghassan Kanafani

An assasinated artist (1936-1972)

Kanafani was born in Akka (Acre), Palestine in 1936. During Al-Nakba, Kanfani and his family were displaced to Lebanon and later to Syria. He then moved to Kuwait and later to Beirut.

Kanafani is a Palestinian novelist, short-story writer, and dramatist. Main themes in his writings are uprootedness, exile, and national struggle. He published several novels and collections of short stories, literary criticism, plays, and historical expositions, including Men in the Sun, All That's Left to You, Umm Sad, and 'A`id ila Hayfa.

Kanafani was assassinated on July 8, 1972, by a car bomb planted by Israeli agents. He was posthumously awarded the Lotus Prize for Literature by the Conference of Afro-Asian Writers.