The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist
First published by Dar al-Hilal in Arabic. The story of a Palestinian who becomes a citizen of Israel, combines fact and fantasy, tragedy and comedy. Saeed is the comic hero, the luckless fool, whose tale tells of aggression and resistance, terror and heroism, reason and loyalty, the qualities that typify the hardships and struggles of Arabs in Israel. An informer for the Zionist state, his stupidity, candor, and cowardice make him more of a victim than a villain; but in a series of tragicomic episodes, he is gradually transformed from a disaster-haunted, gullible collaborator into a Palestinian-no hero still, but a simple man intent on survival and, perhaps, happiness. The author's own anger and sorrow at Palestine's tragedy and his acquaintance with the absurdities of Israeli politics (he was once a member of Israel's parliament himself) are here transmuted into satire both biting and funny. Translated by Anton Shammas into Hebrew, The Secret Life of Saeed won Israel's foremost Prize for Literature; a stage version played to great acclaim for a decade.
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من ارشيف تعليقات القراء 2002
name: Borhan
I support the point of view of the person who did not mention his name and disagreed with Amr. In this novel the endless capacity of the palestinian people to survive and to morally resist their plight is evident in the novel despite all their suffering . One of the best scenes is when the Israeli officer prevents the woman and her son from returning back to her village and forces her to return back. But as she walks away, the farther she goes, the taller her form gets until the officer asks in a loud voice:”when will they disappear”
name: Ali Tal
I read Emile Habibi’s novel Said Abi el-Nahs el-Mutashael years ago. Reading it a second time, I found the same depressed ideas which the book filtered into the conscious of the reader still heaved into my breast, those same bitter emotions were revived. In the dark underworld of the vast narrow stretches of the urban settlements which the enemy raised on the coast, bounded by the sea to the west and the plateau of Palestine to the east, are the places to which the conquered Arabs escaped; hidden places where the poor and the mad were dumped. Said Abi el-Nahs el-Mutashael, Emile Habibi’s alter ego, roved the ruins of the almost made extinct Arab life. Travelling mainly alone, he uncovered a history of utopias and hellish asylums in what became a voyage of discovery and an unforgettable book about life under occupation. In that mad world, there could be no happy endings!! Said Abi el-Nahs el-MutashaelIt is a provocative guide to how to survive the tragedy of being an alien upon the soil of your own homeland. Although hardly scholarly work, the book is an extraordinary achievement...surely one of the most gripping political books ever written.
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أختلف مع ما قاله عمرو محجوب في اعتباره أن الرواية تعبير عن اليأس ، فهي في حقيقة أمرها صرخة مليئة بالأمل فالشعب الفلسطيني يتحصن بالسخرية والتهكم لكنه لا ينكسر ولا ينهار أن تلك الروح التي يجسدها عمل آميل حبيبي المتميز تتسم بالتحدي والصمود الكامنين من تحت المعاناة والقهر الذي يتعرض له الشعب الفلسطيني
name: عمرو محجوب
أتفق مع الزميل هانى فى ان هذا العمل مؤلم وموجع بقدر جماله الأدبى، وأكثر ما يوجع به هو حالة اليأس التام الذى يتسم به، فانهيار الأمة وضياع الوطن أدى الى انيهار القيم ، وربما ليس انهيار القيم فى حد ذاتها بقدر ما هو الشعور بأنه لا يمكن أن يأتى أسوأ مما حدث وهذا فى واقع اأمر يمثل التجربة الفلسطينية الفريدة التى أطلق عليها أميل جبييبى " المتشائل" بسخرية لا تخلو من العمق ووما أدل على ذلك من قصة أخى الراوى الذى وقع به الونش ثم زوجته التى هربت مع رجل آخر
name: Liana Akkad
Emile Habibi’s excellent novel depicts the split personality of the Palestinians of 48, sometimes known as Israeli Arabs. On the one hand, their very existence is a living testimony to Israel’s horrendous crime against the Palestinian people. On the other, they are legally speaking – Israeli citizens – and are as such in constant struggle to ensure their day to day needs in a so called “democracy”. Their dilemma is tragic since the Zioinst state will never accept them as anything other than second class citizens while the arab world is impotent to help them. To survive they need to deny their history , but their very existence is a testimony to that history that they are required to deny. Thanks to emile habibi for choosing to depict this terrible human tragedy in satire and humor.
name: جاسم
أعجبنى كثيرا ان اسلوب الروياة وبناءها مستوحى من التراث فى حين أن مضمونها حاضر معاصر ومن خلال هذا التزاوج يحقق المؤلف الربط التاريخى والجغرافى بين فلسطين الجريحة والجسد العربى الممتد
name: Hani Sidhom
ان تهكم اميل حبيبي اللاذع من أوضاع العالم العربي أكثر إيلاما من الميلودراما، هذا كتاب يجب أن يقرأ بروح يقظة وقلب مفتوح فينتهي بنا األأمر نضحك ونبكي في نفس واحد